Sensation and Perception

The Auditory System

The Nature of Sound

The stimuli for our sense of hearing are sound waves, a form of mechanical energy. Sounds or sound waves are vibrations in the air that are processed by the auditory (or hearing) system. Wavelength determines the frequency of the sound wave, or the number of cycles (full wavelengths) that pass through a point in a given time.

Pitch is the perceptual interpretation of the frequency of a sound.

 The hertz (Hz) is the technical measure of cycles per second; 1 hertz equals 1 cycle per second.
Amplitude refers to the vertical size of sound waves - that is the amount of pressure produced by a sound wave relative to standard. Loudness is the perception of the sound waves amplitude. Differences in amplitude are expressed as decibels (dB), a measure of the physical pressures that occur at the eardrum. The absolute threshold for hearing zero decibels is the weakest sound the human ear can detect. Complex sounds are those in which numerous frequencies of sound blend together. Timbre is the tone saturation or the perceptual quality of a sound.

Structure and Functions of the Ears

The ears serve the purpose of transmitting a high fidelity version of sounds in the world to the brain for analysis and interpretation.

Outer Ear
The outer ear consists of the pinna and the external auditory canal. The funnel-shaped pinna

(pinnae) is the outer visible part of

the ear. The pinna collects sounds and channels them into the interior

of the ear. The pinnae of many

animals serve an important role in sound localization.

Middle Ear
The middle ear channels the sound through the eardrum, hammer, anvil and stirrup to the inner ear. The eardrum is a membrane that vibrates in response to sound. The hammer, anvil and stirrup are a connected chain of the three smallest bones in the human body. When they vibrate, they transmit sound waves to the fluid filled inner ear.

Inner Ear
The inner ear includes both the organ of hearing (the cochlea) and a sense organ that is attuned to the effects of both gravity and motion (labyrinth or vestibular apparatus). The function of the inner ear, which includes the oval window, cochlea and basilar membrane, is to transduce sound waves into neural impulses and send them on to the brain. Hair cells are the sensory receptors of the ear. The movement of the hair cells generates resulting impulses that are interpreted as sound by the brain.

Auditory Transduction: From Pressure Waves to Nerve Impulses

Once energy from the environment is picked up by the receptors, it must be transmitted to the brain for processing and interpretation. In

the auditory system, information about sound moves from the hair cells
of the inner ear to the auditory nerve, which carries nerve impulses to the brains auditory areas. It is the movement of the hair cells that transforms the physical stimulation of sound waves into the action potential of nerve impulses.

Theories on Hearing
The auditory system transforms the sensory qualities of wave amplitude and frequency (pitch and loudness) into the language of nerve impulses. Loudness is coded in terms of both the rate of firing in the axons of the auditory nerve and the specific hair cells that are sending messages. According to the frequency theory of pitch perception, nerve impulses sent to the brain match the frequency of the sound wave.

Neurons are limited in their rate of firing, individual impulses cannot produce high enough frequencies above 1000 hertz.

How then do we perceive higher frequencies, such as a 4000 hertz note from a piano?

Place theory of pitch perception suggests that the specific point in the cochlea where the fluid wave peaks and most strongly bends the hair cells serves as a frequency cue. The auditory cortex has a tonal-frequency map that corresponds to specific areas of the cochlea. By analyzing the specific location of the cochlea from which auditory nerve impulses are being received, the brain can code pitches like 4000 hertz from a piano.

Sound Localization
Our very survival can depend on our ability to locate objects that emit sounds. The nervous system uses information concerning the time and intensity differences of sounds arriving at the two ears to locate the source of sounds in space. Sounds arrive first and loudest at the ear closest to the sound. The sound reaching one ear is more intense than the sound reaching the other ear for two reasons:
1. it has traveled less distance and

2. the other ear is in, what is called the sound shadow of the listeners head, which provides a barrier that reduces the sounds intensity

 Differences in both the timing and intensity of the sound help us to localize a sound. Humans often have difficulty in localizing a sound

that is coming from a source that is directly in front of them because it

reaches both ears simultaneously. The same is true for sounds directly above your head or behind you.

Other animals have even more exotic sound localization systems. (Echolocation with regards to bats)

Noise Pollution and Hearing Loss

Blindness cuts people from things. Deafness cuts people from people. Helen Keller

Usually auditory noise has little effect on us when it is at low volume or when we are doing simple routine tasks. However, under some conditions noise can annoy us and disrupt our behavior.

Noise is bothersome when we cannot do anything to control it. The damage begins with the hair cells in the inner ear which develops blister like bulges that eventually pop. The tissue beneath the hair cells swells and softens until the hair cells and sometimes the neurons leaving the cochlea become scarred and degenerate.

Conduction deafness involves problems with the mechanical systems that transmit sound waves to the cochlea. Use of hearing aid can correct this type of deafness.

Nerve deafness caused by damaged receptors within the inner ear or damage to the auditory nerve itself.
Symptoms of possible hearing loss that could be caused by loud music or noise: ringing or buzzing in ears slight muffing of sounds difficulty in understanding speech - hearing the words but not understanding them problems hearing conversations in groups of people when there is background noise or in rooms with poor acoustics

Levels in decibels 140

Common Sounds Jet fighter taking off 80 ft away

Threshold level Potential damage to auditory system

130
120 110 100 90

Boiler shop
Rock and roll band, jet aircraft Car horn Crosscut saw Inside subway car Hearing damage with prolonged exposure Human pain threshold

80 70 60

Train whistle at 500 feet Inside automobile in city Downtown city street, average traffic

50 40 30 20

Restaurant, business office Classroom, church, Hospital room, library Recording studio Threshold of hearing (young men)

10 0 Minimum threshold of hearing