Psychology 2134A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Basilar Membrane, Sound, Auditory Cortex

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2134A/B
• Professor: Sarah Smits- Bandstra

Document Summary

Sh : consonants are noisier and cannot be extended. If you were to cut off your outer ear, you wouldn"t notice a difference in hearing: auditory sensation begins at the eardrum where pressure waves in the air cause it to vibrate. Inside the cochlea is the basilar membrane: a structure extending inside the length of the cochlea and dividing it into two and then back along the other side. The world of sound: even with all the confusion and noise around us, we are able to extract a rich auditory impression of our surroundings. We recognize objects and events just by the way they sound and we do so not just in pristine conditions but even when multiple sound sources are cluttering the air waves . The speech stream: the device spectrograph separates the sound wave into its component frequencies. These correspond roughly to the consonants and vowels of language.