What is Ohm’s law of hearing?

Ohm’s law of hearing is a principle in acoustics stating that the human ear perceives the tone of a sound based on the amplitudes of its harmonic components, rather than the phase relationships between those harmonics.12

Proposed by the German physicist Georg Simon Ohm, this concept suggests that the ear functions as a type of Fourier analysis device, effectively breaking down complex sounds into their individual spectral components. This theory is consistent with the place theory of hearing, which correlates perceived pitch with the specific location along the basilar membrane of the inner ear that is stimulated by a given frequency.12

It is important to distinguish this acoustic principle from the more widely known Ohm’s law regarding electrical resistance.2