9
Hearing: Physiology and
Psychoacoustics
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Hearing: Physiology and Psychoacoustics, Lecture notes of Psychology
Basic Structure and Basic Operating Characteristics of the Mammalian Auditory System.
Typology: Lecture notes
2020/2021
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Hearing: Physiology and
Psychoacoustics
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- The Function of Hearing
- What Is Sound?
- Basic Structure of the Mammalian Auditory System
- Basic Operating Characteristics of the Auditory System
- Hearing Loss
Chapter 9 Hearing: Physiology and Psychoacoustics
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Sounds are created when objects vibrate.
- Object vibrations cause molecules in the surrounding medium to vibrate, creating pressure changes in the medium.
What Is Sound?
Figure 9.1 The pattern of pressure fluctuations of a sound
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Physical qualities of sound waves
- Amplitude or Intensity: The magnitude of displacement (increase or decrease) of a sound pressure wave. Perceived as loudness
- Frequency: For sound, the number of times per second that a pattern of pressure change repeats.
What Is Sound?
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Units for measuring sound:
- Hertz (Hz): A unit of measure for frequency. One Hz equals one cycle per second.
- Decibel (dB): A unit of measure for the physical intensity of sound. Decibels define the difference between two sounds as the ratio between two sound pressures. Each 10:1 sound pressure ratio equals 20 dB, and a 100:1 ratio equals 40 dB.
What Is Sound?
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Frequency is associated with pitch.
- Low-frequency sounds correspond to low pitches.
- High-frequency sounds correspond to high pitches.
What Is Sound?
Figure 9.2 Amplitude and frequency (Part 1)
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Human hearing uses a limited range of frequencies (Hz) and sound pressure levels (dB).
What Is Sound?
Figure 9.3 Humans can hear frequencies that range from about 20 to 20,000 Hz across a very wide range of intensities, or sound pressure levels
Figure 9.4 Sounds that we hear in our daily environments vary greatly in intensity
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One of the simplest kinds of sounds: Sine waves, or pure tone
- Sine wave: The waveform for which variation as a function of time is a sine function.
Sine waves are not common in everyday sounds because not many vibrations in the world are so pure.
- Most sounds in the world are complex sounds.
What Is Sound?
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Complex sounds are best described as a spectrum that displays how much energy is present in each of the frequencies in the sound.
What Is Sound?
Figure 9.5 A spectrum displays the amplitude for each frequency present in a sound wave