Auditory illusion

Auditory illusions are illusions of real sound or outside stimulus.^[1] These false perceptions are the equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or sounds that should not be possible given the circumstance on how they were created.^[2]

Humans are fairly susceptible to illusions, despite an innate ability to process complex stimuli. Confirmation bias is believed to be largely responsible for the inaccurate judgments that people make when evaluating information, given that humans typically interpret and recall information that appeals to their own biases.^[3] Amongst these misinterpretations, known as illusions, falls the category of auditory illusions. The brain uses multiple senses simultaneously to process information, spatial information is processed with greater detail and accuracy in vision than in hearing.^[4][5][6] Auditory illusions highlight areas where the human ear and brain, as organic survival tools, differentiate from perfect audio receptors; this shows that it is possible for a human being to hear something that is not there and be able to react to the sound they supposedly heard. When someone is experiencing an auditory illusion, their brain is falsely interpreting its surroundings and distorting their perception of the world around them.^[7]