Frequency (Pitch) and Amplitude (Loudness)

Frequency (Pitch) and Amplitude (Loudness)

Chapter 9

  1. Function of Hearing
  2. What is Sound?
  3. Frequency (Pitch) and Amplitude (Loudness)
  4. Complex Tones and Fourier Analysis
  5. Fundamental Frequency
  6. Harmonics
  7. Timbre
  8. Basic Structure
  9. Outer Ear
  10. Tympanic Membrane (eardrum)
  11. Middle Ear
  12. Middle ear bones (ossicles)
  13. Oval window
  14. Muscles of the middle ear
  15. Inner Ear
  16. Cochlea
  17. Basilar Membrane
  18. Inner hair cells
  19. Outer hair cells
  20. Tectorial Membrane
  21. Round window
  22. Inner Hair Cells
  23. Stereocilia (the ‘hairs’ on hair cells, stereocilia are like the ‘dendrites’ on a regular neuron)
  24. Place code – an inner hair cell’s position in the basilar membrane determines it’s frequency tuning. High frequency tuning towards the base (narrow end) and low frequency tuning towards the apex (wide end).
  25. Outer Hair Cells
  26. Amplification and Tuning
  27. Auditory Brain Structures
  28. Hindbrain
  29. Cochlear nuclei
  30. Midbrain
  31. Inferior colliculus (‘where’ pathway
  32. Thalamus
  33. Medial geniculate nucleus (‘what’ pathway)
  34. Cortex
  35. Temporal lobe
  36. Primary auditory cortex
  37. Frequency-specific responses (just like cochlea)
  38. Belt, Parabelt (i.e., secondary and tertiary areas)
  39. Responses become more complex
  40. Basic Operating Characteristics
  41. Intensity and Loudness
  42. Threshold varies with frequency
  43. Frequency and Pitch
  44. Best resolution below 5000 Hz
  45. Place Coding
  46. Hearing Loss
  47. Conductive
  48. Problem with middle ear
  49. Helped by hearing aid
  50. Sensorineural
  51. Problem with inner ear
  52. Helped by cochlear implant

Chapter 10

  1. Sound Localization (Where)
  2. Interaural time difference
  3. Interaural level (intensity) difference
  4. Complex Sounds (What)
  5. Harmonics
  6. Timbre
  7. Auditory Scene Analysis
  8. Grouping by timbre (i.e., grouping by ‘what’)
  9. Grouping by onset (i.e., grouping by ‘where’)
  10. Continuity and Restoration Effects
  11. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

Chapter 11

  1. Music
  2. Music allows sound to stimulate emotional regions in the brain
  3. Sound processing becomes like taste or smell processing
  4. Octaves: pitch ascends like a ‘coil’ even though frequency ascends in a linear fashion.
  5. Chords: lateral relationships within the ‘coil’ – much of the emotional content of music comes from chords
  6. Cultural differences: emotional relationships to sounds are learned
  7. Making Music
  8. Melody
  9. Rhythm
  10. Harmony
  11. Speech
  12. Speech Production
  13. Phonation (air, trachea, larynx)
  14. Fundamental frequency of speech
  15. Produces harmonic frequencies in lower half of face
  16. Articulation (lower half of the face)
  17. Modulating harmonic frequencies in the lower half of the face
  18. Formant frequencies
  19. Speech Perception
  20. The Problem of Coarticulation
  21. Importance of preceding and following sounds
  22. Categorical Perception
  23. Tuning for speech sounds
  24. How is speech ‘speech’
  25. Importance of visual cues (McGurk Effect)
  26. Speech learning (development)
  27. We’re born as ‘universal citizens of earth’
  28. Experiences tunes mechanisms of speech perception
  29. More sensitivity to ‘native’ speech sounds
  30. Lost sensitivity to sounds in other languages
  31. Same for mechanisms of speech production