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Psych 211 (neuro) > Hearing > Flashcards

Hearing Flashcards

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1
Q

What is a sound wave?

A
  • when an object vibrates, it causes molecules in the surrounding air to alternately condense and rarefy (pull apart)
  • these fluctuations in air pressure give rise to a sound wave
  • it travels away from the object at approximately 700 miles per hour
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2
Q

When can the human ear transduce fluctuations in air pressure?

A
  • when the length of the sound wave is between 0.017 (17 mm) and 17 meters long
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3
Q

What causes a sound wave to be between 0.017 and 17 metres long?

A
  • when physical objects vibrate between 20 and 20,000 times per second
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4
Q

What are the 3 physical dimensions of sound?

A
  • loudness
  • pitch
  • timbre
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5
Q

What is loudness?

A
  • the amplitude or intensity of the molecular vibrations
  • the relative difference in the density of air molecules between compressed and rarified air
  • determines how far the sound wave will travel
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6
Q

What is pitch?

A
  • tone
  • the frequency of the molecular vibrations (or the distance between neighboring peaks of compressed air)
  • measured in hertz (Hz, cycles per second)
  • every frequency has a corresponding wavelength
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7
Q

What is timbre?

A
  • the complexity of the sound wave
  • brains learn to recognize the timbre of sound waves to identify the source of the sound
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8
Q

What is noise?

A
  • non-repeating variations in air pressure are perceived as noise, not as identifiable notes
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9
Q

What are notes?

A
  • repeated variations in air pressure
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10
Q

What is the anatomy of the ear?

A
  • outer ear
  • middle ear
  • inner ear
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11
Q

What is the outer ear made of?

A
  • pinna
  • ear canal
  • eardrum
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12
Q

What is the middle ear made of?

A

3 ossicles:
- malleus
- incus
- stapes

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13
Q

What is the inner ear made of?

A
  • cochlea
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14
Q

How does sound travel through the ear?

A
  • sound is funneled through the pinna
  • at the end of the ear canal, sounds cause the tympanic membrane to vibrate
  • vibrations transfer to the middle ear and cause the ossicles to vibrate
  • cause the membrane behind the oval window to vibrate
  • vibrations of the oval window are transmitted to the fluid-filled cochlea
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15
Q

What is the basilar membrane?

A
  • sheet of cells
  • neurons that detect sound
  • designed to respond to waves through cochlea
  • bends with vibrations (fast/high notes = bend at base, slow/low notes = bend at apex)
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16
Q

Where in the basilar membrane are high pitched notes detected?

A
  • where the basilar membrane is thick, narrow and tight (closest to the oval window)
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17
Q

Where in the basilar membrane are low pitched notes detected?

A
  • where the basilar membrane is thin, wide and loose
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18
Q

What are the 3 longitudinal divisions of the cochlea?

A
  • scala vestibuli
  • scala media
  • scala tympani
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19
Q

What is the organ of Corti?

A
  • the receptive organ
  • consists of the basilar membrane on bottom
  • tectorial membrane on top
  • auditory hair cells in the middle
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20
Q

What are hair cells?

A
  • cells that transduce sound
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21
Q

What are cilia?

A
  • the hair cells hair-like extensions
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22
Q

What are the cilia on the outer hair cells?

A
  • attached to the rigid tectorial membrane
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23
Q

What are the cilia on the inner hair cells?

A
  • not attached to anything
  • sway back and forth with the movement of the solution
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24
Q

How do sound waves effect organ of Corti?

A
  • sound waves cause the basilar membrane to move relative to the tectorial membrane
  • causes hair cell cilia to stretch and bend
  • movement of the cilia pulls open ion channels, which changes the membrane potential of hair cells
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25
Q

How many hair cells are there?

A
  • 3 times more outer hair cells than inner hair cells
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26
Q

What are outer hair cells?

A
  • act like muscles to adjust the sensitivity of the tectorial membrane to vibrations
  • regulating the flexibility of the tectorial membrane
  • influence the sensitivity of inner hair cells to specific frequencies of sound
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27
Q

What are inner hair cells?

A
  • transmit auditory information to the brain
  • perception of hearing comes from inner hair cells
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28
Q

What happens to people who do not have working inner hair cells?

A
  • completely deaf
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29
Q

What happens to people who do not have working outer hair cells?

A
  • can hear, but not very well
30
Q

What are tip links?

A
  • connect the cilia of hair cells to each other
  • elastic filaments that attach the tip of one cilium to the side of adjacent cilium
31
Q

What is the insertional plaque?

A
  • the point of attachment of a tip link to a cilium
  • each one has a single ion channel in it that opens and closes according to the amount of stretch exerted by the tip link
32
Q

What happens when there is a loud noise?

A
  • loud noises can easily break the tip links
  • hair cells cannot transmit auditory information without tip links
  • tip link breakage generally corresponds to temporary hearing loss
33
Q

How fast to tip links grow back?

A
  • within a few hours
34
Q

Why do the tip links break?

A
  • protective measure
  • because too much glutamate release onto the cochlear nerve causes permanent cell death
35
Q

How many 20 year olds have noise-induced hearing loss?

A
  • 20% of 20 year olds
  • presumably due to cochlear nerve damage
36
Q

What is the major principle of auditory coding?

A
  • different frequencies of sound produce maximal stimulation of hair cells at different points on the basilar membrane
  • place coding
37
Q

What is place coding?

A
  • approach to encoding sensory information
  • the position of the most active hair cell in the cochlea indicates the fundamental frequency (the pitch) of the sound wave
38
Q

How are moderate to high frequencies encoded?

A
  • entirely encoded by place coding
  • human speech is in this frequency range
39
Q

How are very low frequencies encoded?

A
  • largely encoded by rate coding
40
Q

How does place coding work in the auditory system?

A
  • acoustic stimuli of different frequencies cause different amounts of movement along the basilar membrane
  • higher frequency sounds cause bending of the basilar membrane closest to the stapes, resulting in more hair cell activity in that area
41
Q

How does rate coding work in the auditory system?

A
  • the pattern of neurotransmitter release from the hair cells deepest in the cochlea (furthest from the stapes) determines the perception of low frequency sounds
42
Q

What is the sensitivity of three individual inner hair cells, as shown by their response threshold to pure tones of varying frequency?

A
  • one inner for every 3 outer??
  • low points indicate that these inner hair cells will respond to faint sound only if it is of a specific frequency
  • when sound is louder, cells will respond to frequencies above and below their preferred frequencies
  • lesions in outer hair cells will disrupt the responsiveness of inner hair cells to specific sounds (only react to louder sounds and most activated at a different frequency)
43
Q

How is pitch perception encorded?

A
  • moderate to high frequencies are encoded by place coding
  • low frequencies are partly encoded by rate coding
44
Q

What does loudness correspond to?

A
  • the total number of hair cells that are active and their overall activity levels
45
Q

How is timbre perceived?

A
  • by assessing the precise mixture of hair cells that are active throughout the entire cochlea
46
Q

What is the fundamental frequency?

A
  • the lowest frequency in the sound wave
  • most intense frequency of a complex sound
  • perceived as sound’s basic pitch
47
Q

What are natural sounds comprised of?

A
  • a fundamental frequency
  • a collection of overtones
48
Q

What are overtones?

A
  • sound wave frequencies that occurs at integer multiples of the fundamental frequency
  • because strings (and membranes) are clamped on each end, oscillations tend to only occur at integer multiples of the fundamental frequency
49
Q

What does the timbre of sound refer to?

A
  • specific mixture of frequencies (fundamental frequency plus overtones) that different instruments emit when the same note is played
  • complexity of the sound wave
50
Q

How do we identify which instrument made the sound?

A
  • analyze the timbre of a sound and how the timbre changes over time
51
Q

What are cochlear implants?

A
  • take advantage of the place coding system of the cochlea
  • elicit the perception of different notes by stimulating different places along the cochlea
  • loudness is controlled by the frequency of stimulation
52
Q

What is the fundamental frequency of human speech?

A
  • 100-250 Hz
53
Q

How do cochlear implants understand human speech?

A
  • understanding human speech is often best when positions corresponding to 250 Hz to 6500 Hz are stimulated
54
Q

How do we identify the direction of a sound (localize sound)?

A
  • interaural cues
  • analyzing the timing difference between the 2 ears (which ear heard the sound first)
55
Q

What are interaural cues?

A
  • differences in sound perception between the two ears
56
Q

How do we localize high frequency sounds (> 800 Hz)?

A
  • use interaural loudness differences (which ear heard it louder)
  • the loudness of a high-pitched (high frequency) sound is significantly dampened by the head
57
Q

How do we localize low frequency sounds (< 800 Hz)?

A
  • the brain analyzes the phase difference between the two ears
  • listen over a longer time to know which ear heard it first
  • wavelengths that are longer than the width of the head
58
Q

How do we identify the height of a sound?

A
  • analyze the timbre of the sound wave
  • shape of our outer ear creates a direction-selective filter
  • different frequencies are enhanced/attenuated when sound enters our ears from different directions
  • highly individual
  • not born with this skill; must learn by integrating visual and auditory perceptions
  • abrupt changes in the shape of your outer ear can make it difficult to accurately localize the elevation of sounds
59
Q

What is a direction-selective filter?

A
  • different frequencies are enhanced/attenuated when sound enters our ears from different directions
60
Q

How does auditory information travel from the ear to brain?

A
  • organ of Corti sends auditory information to the brain via the cochlear nerve
  • axons synapse in the cochlear nuclei (in medulla), where copies of the signal are made to be analyzed in parallel ascending paths
  • axons from the cochlear nuclei synapse in the superior olivary nuclei (in medulla) and the inferior colliculi (in midbrain)
  • axons from the inferior colliculi synapse in the medial geniculate nucleus (in thalamus)
  • thalamus relays the information to the primary auditory cortex (in temporal lobe)
61
Q

What do the superior olivary nuclei (in medulla) and the inferior colliculi (in midbrain) help do?

A
  • help localize the source of sounds
62
Q

What is tonotopic representation?

A
  • the primary auditory cortex is organised according to frequency
  • different parts of the auditory cortex respond best to different frequencies
  • different frequencies of sound are analyzed in different places of auditory cortex
63
Q

Where is the primary auditory cortex?

A
  • core region
  • in the upper section of the temporal lobe, mostly hidden in the lateral fissure
64
Q

Where is the auditory association cortex?

A
  • belt and parabelt regions
65
Q

What is the posterior dorsal auditory pathway?

A
  • involved in sound localization
  • where stream
  • meets up with the “where” vision pathway in the parietal lobe
  • temporal to parietal lobe
66
Q

What is the anterior auditory pathway?

A
  • important for recognizing what produced a sound
  • what stream
  • temporal to frontal lobe
67
Q

What causes auditory agnosia?

A
  • brain damage in auditory association cortex
68
Q

What are the types of auditory agnosia?

A
  • amusia
69
Q

What does the auditory association cortex process?

A
  • different areas process the melody, rhythm, and harmony (overtones) of music
  • other areas are involved in the perception of sound as pleasant (consonant) or unpleasant (dissonant), and certain combinations of musical notes can trigger emotions (happy or sad)
70
Q

What is amusia?

A
  • the inability to perceive or produce melodic music
  • unable to sing or recognize a song
  • can often converse and understand speech and recognize environmental sounds
  • can recognize the emotions conveyed in music
  • unable to tell the difference between consonant music (pleasant sounding harmony) and dissonant music (unstable, transitional), even though these sounds might alter their emotional state

Psych 211 (neuro) (21 decks)

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