PSYO 1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Auditory System, Sound, Basilar Membrane

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYO 1011
• Professor: Leanne Stevens,Shelley Adamo,Kevin Duffy,Jennifer Stamp

Document Summary

Auditory system is designed to detect sound waves from our external environment. Air molecules being compressed and refracted produce these sound waves. There are 2 important characteristics about sound waves: Frequency - is the number of cycles per second; measure in hz. Our auditory system perceives frequency as pitch: amplitude - distance between the peak and trough of a sound wave. Amplitude and frequency are independent of one other. 0 db is the smallest detectable sound (detection threshold for humans) 10 db = 10x the smallest detectable sound. There are two different types of sound waves: pure wave - very rare in natural world (ex: whistling, complex - the merge of two simple waves to form a complex wave. The auditory system takes in the complex waves and separates them into their simpler waves and then brain compiles them so we can hear a clear sound sound. Range of hearing: humans can detect all frequencies between 20hz and 20000hz.