PSYC 100 Lecture 10: Lectures 10 - 11

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jill L Atkinson

Document Summary

The adequate stimulus for hearing is sound. Two key characteristics of sound are amplitude and frequency. Sine wave: a sound that is a single frequency. Timbre: perceptual dimension of sound determined in part by its complexity. The outer ear funnels the sound into the ear canal so that it can vibrate against the eardrum. The middle ear amplifies the sound and pushes the vibration into the inner ear. Cilia: tiny hairs in the ear that move, causing an action potential which sends a signal to the brain. Most hearing loss comes from damage to the cilia. Cochlear implants are hearing devices that can stimulate the auditory nerve, allowing deaf people to hear. Tonotopic organization: anatomical separation of frequencies in the ear. Neurons cannot fire faster than the speed of sound. We hear because multiple nerve fibers connect to each place on the basilar membrane (the sensitive part of the ear that contains cilia)