Psychology 2115A/B Lecture Notes - Sound Pressure, Tuning Fork, Oval Window

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2115A/B
• Professor: Prof

Document Summary

Tuning fork: moving back and forth creating a sound wave that comes to your ear. Graph: pressure on y axis, distance on x axis (just a wave going up and down)- typical sine wave. Pattern of high pressure, low pressure, high pressure, low pressure as the object moves back and forth. This suggests you need a medium for the alternating patterns of pressure to travel through. Trying to describe the waves: frequency: how often does it repeat itself, the frequency is measured in hertz (hz) A reflection of the intensity of the vibration (bang the tuning fork really hard, the sound wave has a high amplitude)- frequency wont change, the wave lines will just go higher and deeper. The bel unit is too big, it doesn"t effectively measure things- like using kilometers to measure height. Instead people report things in tenths of bels, which is a decibel. When using a description of the sound pressure level we use decibels.