PSYC 3270 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Thalamus, Incus, Auditory Cortex

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3270
• Professor: Laurie Wilcox

Document Summary

Chapter 11- hearing: our ability to hear serves an important signaling function for humans. Perceptual aspects of sound (what we hear: loudness (db)- differences in the perceived magnitude of a sound (ex. whisper vs. shout), pitch- differences in the low to high quality of sounds. Thresholds and loudness: loudness is related the level/amplitude (db) of an auditory stimulus, a sound of 0 db spl is the jnd for that stimulus (determined using p0 of 20 micropascals. Increasing the amplitude by 10 db almost doubles the sound"s loudness: loudness is judged relative to a standard stimulus so if the presented stimulus sounds. When a long tone is heard in a noisy room (the lower harmonics cannot be heard), the tone"s pitch remains the same as it would if the long tone were to be heard in a quiet room) Contraction of the muscles helps sounds from chewing not interfere with the sounds we need to concentrate on.