What does the amplitude of a sound wave primarily affect when heard by a human?
Loudness of the sound
Amplitude is the maximum disturbance of the particles of the medium from their mean position as sound passes through it. A larger amplitude means the sound carries more energy, since the energy is proportional to the square of the amplitude.
The human ear senses this energy as loudness. A sound of large amplitude is heard as loud and a sound of small amplitude as soft, so amplitude mainly affects the loudness of the sound.
Pitch depends on the frequency of the sound, not on its amplitude. Quality, also called timbre, depends on the waveform, that is, the mix of overtones, and lets us tell apart two sounds of the same pitch and loudness.
Hence, Loudness of the sound.
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