101682 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Outer Ear, Inner Ear, Oval Window

• School: UWS
• Department: University of Western Sydney
• Course: 101682
• Professor: Maretta Coleman

Document Summary

Overview: auditory and vision, auditory development before birth, auditory abilities at & around birth. Sound can permeate various media: hearing does not require humans to turn on our ears in order to hear, hearing cant be turned off, we can. So sounds reach the infant auditory system only via bone conduction (via their mothers body and their own head: accordingly, babies hear mainly low frequency sound - muffled but still maintaining rhythmic and intonational qualities. Week 2: but both these are adult-like by 6 months, though loudness thresholds continue to develop until 10 years. Auditory preferences at birth: preference for speech over non-speech in neonates (vouloumanos & werker, 2003, preference for mothers voice both before (kisilevsky, hains et al. , 2003) and at birth (decasper. & fifer, 1980: perference for native language (mehler, jusczyk et al. , 1988, mother voice and native language preferences based on rhythmic and intonational aspects of speech - makes sense when the intrauterine environment is considered.