But there are such labels for sound; we label individual frequencies as notes (C, D, E, et cetera), as well as overall profiles of sound (oboe, violin, piano, etc.). We also have words to describe the qualities of arbitrary sounds such as harsh, melodious, twittering, whining, thumping, and many others. I don't think the difference between sight and hearing has to do with splitting up the space into discrete categories, since we do that for both senses.
That brings up an interesting point, though; I can't tell the absolute pitch of a note without some thought (I cheat by comparing it to the note I know I'd make if I hummed completely without tension, which is a B, though I wish I had perfect pitch). So sounds are all relative to each other for most people, which could somehow account for them all sounding alike.
Can anyone with perfect pitch tell us whether they experience notes as being fundamentally different in the way colors usually are?
Agreed - we do use such labels for many aspects of sounds, but with the exception of labelling musical notes, sound-related terms tend to refer to multidimensional characteristics of sounds, not just frequencies (although in many cases, related to frequency). This leads to a situation in which sound quality terms may tend to be less discrete than basic colour words; if so one would predict less categorical perception than is observed for basic colour words.
I think we can also see this same phenomenon in colour as well - once we go beyond a language's basic colour terms where colour labels are not nearly so contrastive (mauve/fuschia?).
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