PSYCH 1XX3 Lecture : Sound Production
4 Feb 2014
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Document Summary
Basilar membrane: contains hearing receptors sounds of different frequencies are processed along different areas in the basilar membrane: shortest in reptiles, longer in birds, longest in mammals, mammals can discriminate frequencies over 10 000hz, the longer the basilar membrane the wider the range of sounds that you can hear. Timbre: complexity of the sound, purity, whole tone, overtones, final sound(cid:224)mixture of fundamental tone and overtones, instrument combinations of frequencies and overtones sound different to us. Middle (cid:224)amplified air pressure so it can be detected as changes in fluid by the inner ear: begins on the other side of the eardrum, connects to 3 ossicles, anvil, hammer, stirrup, vibrating ossicles are about 20x bigger than the oval window"s area to which they connect, create a lever system that amplifies the vibrations even more, additional amplification is necessary because the changes in air pressure detected by the external ear are about to be converted to waves in the fluid filled inner ear.
