BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.6 | AUDITION, MECHANICAL, CHEMICAL
AUDITION
Sound and the Ear:
Physics and Psychology of Sound
➢ The amplitude of a sound wave is its
intensity. A bolt of lightning produces
sound waves of great amplitude.
➢ Loudness is a sensation related to
amplitude but not identical to it.
➢ The frequency of a sound is the number
of compressions per second, measured
in Hz (hertz).
➢ Pitch is the related aspect of
perception.
Structures of the Ear
• Pinna - The outer ear, the familiar
structure of flesh and cartilage attached
to each side of the head.
• After sound waves pass through the
auditory canal (Figure 7.2), they strike
the tympanic membrane, or eardrum, in
the middle ear.
➢ The tympanic membrane vibrates
at the same frequency as the sound
waves that strike it.
➢ The tympanic membrane connects
to three tiny bones that transmit the
vibrations to the oval window - a
membrane of the inner ear.
The three tiny bones:
➢ known by their English names
o Hammer
o Anvil
o stirrup
➢ Sometimes by their Latin names
o malleus
o incus
o stapes
• The inner ear contains a snail-shaped
structure called the Cochlea
• A cross-section through the cochlea,
shows three long fluid filled tunnels:
o the scala vestibuli
o scala media
o scala tympani
The stirrup makes the oval window vibrate
at the entrance to the scala vestibuli,
thereby setting in motion the fluid in the
cochlea.
• Hair cells - The auditory receptors, lie
between the basilar membrane of the
cochlea on one side and the tectorial
membrane on the other.
PITCH PERCEPTION
• According to the place theory, the
basilar membrane resembles the
strings of a piano in that each area
along the membrane is tuned to a
specific frequency.
• According to the frequency theory, the
basilar membrane vibrates in
synchrony with a sound, causing
auditory nerve axons to produce action
potentials at the same frequency.
THE AUDITORY CORTEX
• The information ultimately reaches the
primary auditory cortex (area A1) in the
superior temporal cortex.
• Patients with damage in parts of the
superior temporal cortex become
motion deaf. They hear sounds, but
they do not detect that a source of a
sound is moving.
• In people who are deaf from birth, the
axons leading from the auditory cortex
develop less than in other people.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.6 | AUDITION, MECHANICAL, CHEMICAL
HEARING LOSS
• Diseases, infections, or tumorous bone
growth can prevent the middle ear
from transmitting sound waves properly
to the cochlea.
➢ The result is conductive deafness, or
middle ear deafness.
- It is sometimes temporary.
- If it persists, it can be corrected
either by surgery or by hearing
aids that amplify the stimulus.
- Because people with conductive
deafness have a normal cochlea
and auditory nerve, they hear their
own voices, which can be
conducted through the bones of the
skull directly to the cochlea,
bypassing the middle ear.
- Because they hear themselves
clearly, they may blame others for
talking too softly.
➢ Nerve deafness, or inner-ear deafness,
results from damage to the cochlea, the
hair cells, or the auditory nerve.
Nerve deafness can be inherited, or it can
develop from a variety of disorders,
including:
1. Exposure of the mother to rubella
(German measles), syphilis, or other
diseases or toxins during pregnancy
2. Inadequate oxygen to the brain during
birth
3. Deficient activity of the thyroid gland
4. Certain diseases, including multiple
sclerosis and meningitis
5. Childhood reactions to certain drugs,
including aspirin
6. Exposure to loud noises
THE MECHANICAL SENSES
THE VESTIBULAR SENSES
➢ The vestibular system
- detects the position and
acceleration of the head
- adjusts body posture and eye
movements accordingly
SOMATOSENSORY SYSTEM (TOUCH)
• The somatosensory system depends
on a variety of receptors that are
sensitive to different kinds of
stimulation of the skin and internal
tissues.
• The brain maintains several parallel
somatosensory representations of the
body.
• Activity in the primary somatosensory
cortex corresponds to what someone
is experiencing, even if it is illusory
and not the same as the actual
stimulation.
PAIN
• Pain
➢ the experience evoked by a
harmful stimulus.
➢ directs your attention toward a
danger and holds your attention.
• The prefrontal cortex, which is
important for attention, typically
responds only briefly to any new light,
sound, or touch.
➢ With pain, it continues responding
as long as the pain lasts.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.6 | AUDITION, MECHANICAL, CHEMICAL
PAIN STIMULI AND PAIN PATHS
• Pain axons release two
neurotransmitters in the spinal cord.
➢ Mild pain releases the
neurotransmitter glutamate
➢ Stronger pain releases both
glutamate and substance P
• Touch information travels up the
ipsilateral side of the spinal cord to the
medulla, where it crosses to the
contralateral side
• If you watch someone— especially
someone you care about—
experiencing pain, you experience a
“sympathetic pain” that shows up
mainly as activity in your cingulate
cortex.
• A hypnotic suggestion to feel no pain
decreases the responses in the
cingulate cortex without much effect on
the somatosensory cortex.
➢ If someone responding to a hypnotic
sensation still feels the painful
sensation but reacts with emotional
indifference. People with damage to the
cingulate gyrus still feel pain, but it no
longer distresses them. They return
to normal activity and a more cheerful
mood, despite chronic pain.
➢ Insensitivity to pain is dangerous.
People with a gene that inactivates pain
axons suffer repeated injuries and
generally fail to learn to avoid dangers
OPIODS AND ENDORPHINS
• The brain puts the brakes on prolonged
pain by opioid mechanisms— systems
that respond to opiate drugs (treat
moderate to severe pain) and similar
chemicals.
• Opiates bind to receptors found mostly
in the spinal cord and the
periaqueductal gray area of the
midbrain.
• The transmitters that attach to the same
receptors as morphine are known as
endorphins—a contraction of
endogenous morphines.
• Inescapable pain is especially potent at
stimulating endorphins and inhibiting
further pain.
o Endorphins are released during sex
and when you listen to thrilling music
that sends a chill down your spine.
• According to the gate theory, spinal
cord neurons that receive messages
from pain receptors also receive input
from touch receptors and from axons
descending from the brain
• Morphine does not block the sharp pain
of the surgeon’s knife. For that, you
need a general anesthetic.
• Instead, morphine blocks the slower,
duller pain that lingers after surgery.
o Larger diameter axons,
unaffected by morphine, carry
sharp pain.
o Thinner axons convey dull
postsurgical pain, and morphine
does inhibit them
PLACEBOS
• A placebo - is a drug or other procedure
with no pharmacological effects.
• A placebo’s effects are mainly on
emotional response to pain, not on
the sensation itself.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.6 | AUDITION, MECHANICAL, CHEMICAL
• That is, a placebo decreases the
response in the cingulate cortex but not
the somatosensory cortex.
• If placebos were simply producing
relaxation, the relaxation should have
affected all four extremities. Placebos
relieve pain partly by increasing the
release of opiates and partly by
increasing release of dopamine.
➢ Antiplacebos or nocebos (suggestions
that the pain will increase) worsen pain
by increasing anxiety.
➢ Antianxiety drugs - weaken the effects
of nocebos.
CANNABINOIDS AND CAPSAICIN
• Cannabinoids—chemicals related to
marijuana—also block certain kinds of
pain.
➢ Unlike opiates, cannabinoids act
mainly in the periphery of the body
rather than the CNS.
• Another approach to relieving pain
uses capsaicin. As mentioned,
capsaicin produces a painful burning
sensation by releasing substance P
• Capsaicin rubbed onto a sore shoulder,
an arthritic joint, or other painful area
produces a temporary burning
sensation followed by a longer period of
decreased pain.
SENSITIZATION OF PAIN
• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,
such as ibuprofen, relieve pain by
reducing the release of chemicals from
damaged tissues
SOCIAL PAIN
• Hurt feelings do resemble physical pain
in important regards.
• Experimenters monitored people’s
brain activity during this task and found
significantly increased activity in the
cingulate cortex when someone felt
left out. Recall that the cingulate cortex
responds to the emotional aspect of
pain.
ITCH
• When you have mild tissue damage—
such as when your skin is healing after
a cut—your skin releases histamines
that dilate blood vessels and produce
an itching sensation.
• Itch is useful because it directs you to
scratch the itchy area and remove
whatever is irritating your skin.
• Vigorous scratching produces mild
pain, and pain inhibits itch.
➢ Opiates, which decrease pain,
increase itch.
• This inhibitory relationship between
pain and itch is the strongest evidence
that itch is not a type of pain.
THE CHEMICAL SENSES
CHEMICAL CODING
• In a system relying on the labeled-line
principle, each receptor would respond
to a limited range of stimuli, and the
meaning would depend entirely on
which neurons are active.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.6 | AUDITION, MECHANICAL, CHEMICAL
TASTE
• Taste results from stimulation of the
taste buds, the receptors on the tongue.
When we talk about the taste of food,
we generally mean flavor, which is a
combination of taste and smell.
Whereas other senses remain separate
throughout the cortex, taste and smell
axons converge onto many of the same
cells in an area called the endopiriform
cortex - convergence enables taste and
smell to combine their influences on
food selection.
TASTE RECEPTORS
• Mammalian taste receptors are in taste
buds located in papillae on the surface
of the tongue.
➢ A given papilla may contain up to 10
or more taste buds
➢ Each taste bud contains about 50
receptor cells.
HOW MANY KINDS OF
TASTE RECEPTORS
➢ Adaptation, reflects the fatigue of
receptors sensitive to sour tastes.
➢ Cross adaptation—reduced
response to one taste after
exposure to another.
- salty, sweet, or bitter. These
substances taste about the
same as usual
• Glutamate tastes somewhat like
unsalted chicken broth. The English
language had no word for this taste, so
English-speaking researchers adopted
the Japanese word umami.
TASTE CODING IN THE BRAIN
• Information from the receptors in the
anterior two thirds of the tongue travels
to the brain along the chorda tympani,
a branch of the seventh cranial nerve
(the facial nerve). Taste information
from the posterior tongue and the throat
travels along branches of the ninth and
tenth cranial nerves. What do you
suppose would happen if someone
anesthetized your chorda tympani? You
would no longer taste anything in the
anterior part of your tongue, but you
probably would not notice, because you
would still taste with the posterior part.
• The taste nerves project to the nucleus
of the tractus solitarius(NTS), a
structure in the medulla. From the NTS,
information branches out, reaching the
pons, the lateral hypothalamus, the
amygdala, the ventral-posterior
thalamus, and two areas of the cerebral
cortex
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN TASTE
• People at the opposite extreme, known
as supertasters, have the highest
sensitivity to all tastes and mouth
sensation.
• Supertasters tend to have strong food
preferences. On average, they like their
favorite foods more than other people,
and avoid their least-favorite foods
more.
• The difference between tasters and
supertasters depends on the number
of fungiform papillae near the tip of
the tongue, with supertasters having
the largest number.
• Women’s taste sensitivity rises and falls
with their monthly hormone cycles and
reaches its maximum during early
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.6 | AUDITION, MECHANICAL, CHEMICAL
pregnancy, when estradiol levels are
high.

OLFACTION

• Olfaction, the sense of smell, is the

response to chemicals that contact the
membranes inside the nose.

• For most mammals, olfaction is critical

for finding food and mates and for
avoiding dangers.

OLFACTORY RECEPTORS

• The neurons responsible for smell are

the olfactory cells, which line the
olfactory epithelium in the rear of the
nasal air passages.

• In mammals, each olfactory cell has

cilia (threadlike dendrites) that extend
from the cell body into the mucous
surface of the nasal passage. Olfactory
receptors are located on the cilia.

SYNESTHESIA

• Synesthesia is the experience some

people have in which stimulation of one
sense evokes a perception of that
sense and another one also.