BIOLOGY 2C03 Lecture Notes - Middle Ear, Kanamycin A, Hair Cell
28 Jan 2013
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Auditory i peripheral auditory system: human perceive the frequency and loudness of sound. The dynamic range of human perception is about 100-16,000 hz and 0-120 db. The dynamic range of conversational speech is a small subset of total perception. One way to measure a tuning curve is to measure the loudness needed to mask a probe of single tone as a function of frequency; obviously, minimum loudness is needed when mask frequency is same as probe. Speech consists of a mixture of tones of different frequencies. Different vowel sounds are the result of the shape of the vocal tract and how it modifies the tone produced by the vocal folds. The information needed to recognize vowel sounds is encoded as peaks of energy at certain frequencies; these peaks are called formants. The precise value of formants can vary from person to person (e. g. due to size of vocal tract), but are still recognized because vowel sounds cluster in formant-space.
