Longitudinal wave and seismic P-waves (created by earthquakes and explosions). In longitudinal waves, the displacement of the medium is parallel to the propagation of the wave, and waves can be either straight or round. A wave along the length of a stretched Slinky toy, where the distance between coils increases and decreases, is a good visualization. In the case of longitudinal harmonic sound waves, the frequency and wavelength can be described by the formula where: The quantity "x"/"c" is the time that the wave takes to travel the distance "x". The ordinary frequency ("f") of the wave is given by The wavelength
Sound localization Sound localization Sound localization is a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance. It may also refer to the methods in acoustical engineering to simulate the placement of an auditory cue in a virtual 3D space (see binaural recording, wave field synthesis). The sound localization mechanisms of the mammalian auditory system have been extensively studied. The auditory system uses several cues for sound source localization, including time- and level-differences (or intensity-difference) between both ears, spectral information, timing analysis, correlation analysis, and pattern matching. These cues are also used by other animals,