Hearing and Language Flashcards
1
Q
Emotional Imbalance: Misophonia
A
- Sounds which make you feel uncomfortable or angry
- Sound of people eating
2
Q
The nature of sound
A
- A sound source lets out repeated circular pressure waves
- Looks like if you were to drop a pebble into water
3
Q
Properties of a sound wave
A
- Pure tone is portrayed as a sine wave
- Sine waves show amplitude and frequency
- Amplitude = loudness
- Frequency = pitch
4
Q
How do sound waves make music
A
- Keys on a keyboard are ordered in rising frequency
- One octave is C-C which is the same tone but multiple frequency
5
Q
Combining frequencies to make harmonies
A
- If you play two frequencies at the same time, you get complex chords and
- Pure tones combined together creates musical tones
6
Q
What is noise
A
- Creates interference between all of the individual tones
- White noise is random amplitudes of frequencies
7
Q
Hearing and the Ear
A
- the ear is known as a transducer
- Outer ear, directional microphone
- Middle ear, impedance matching, overload protection
- Inner ear, frequency analysis, neural encoding
- Ears are extremely sensitive
8
Q
What is frequency Masking
A
- When a instrument has a larger frequency range as well as larger intensity, it masks another instrument which has a lower range and lower intensity
- You can measure a threshold by increasing the frequency of an instrument until you can no longer hear the other one.
9
Q
Threshold at different frequencies
A
- Measuring the threshold for a distant and close mask, you then see how the hearing profile looks at that time.
- You can then see a threshold curve
- A threshold curve is the amplitude of the masking tone in relation to the target tone for different frequencies
- Channel filter tuning is the basis for perception of pitch
10
Q
How do we measure perceived loudness
A
- can be measured by comparing different tones at different frequencies
- The intensity of the comparison tone can be adjusted until the same ‘subjective’ as the reference tone
- If you were to compare multiple frequencies you could use a curve of equal loudness
- Physical intensity (sound pressure level) is recorded as ‘perceived loudness’
11
Q
What can we hear?
A
- equal loudness contours are determined by matching the perceived intensity of tone pairs at various base intensities
- Audiograms can be used for environmental assessments i.e. how loud are the planes
- Speech is in a frequency range between 200 and 300 hz
12
Q
Ecology of sound intensity
A
- Anything around 70db should be avoided i.e. hoover
- 90db is dangerous for example Large waterfall
- 140db is pain level i.e. plain taking off
- Threshold is 0db
13
Q
What is a clinical audiogram
A
- Displays the patients hearing loss
- A single curve of threshold elevation is used for each ear
14
Q
What is the spectrum for human speech
A
- Large range of audible spectrum
- Sounds from vowels are in lower frequency ranges
- Sounds from consonants covers almost the entire range
- Telephone system loses higher frequency (technically a hearing impairment)
15
Q
What are the forms of hearing impairment?
A
- Deafness is a type of hearing impairment
Presbycusis: type of hearing loss that occurs with age (high frequency hearing loss)
Noise exposure: temporary hearing loss or permanent deafness
Tinnitus: Continuous humming or ringing
16
Q
What is a sonogram
A
- To characterise sound you have to have time and frequency and the intensity information
- A Sonogram shows all this data (frequency, intensity and time)
17
Q
Why are spoken words complex
A
- Spectogram shows frequency intensity and time
- Every word has a complex pattern of frequency as well as intensity which is regulated as a function of time
- Waveform envelope (microphone)
18
Q
What are the building blocks of language
A
- First you hear a word which goes into the ‘Auditory System’. -> Auditory input
- You can then use this to create spoken language ‘Phoneme system’. -> Spoken word
- They all lead to semantic system
19
Q
Listening and Speaking
A
Broca’s area in the frontal lobe: There is speech production
Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe: Phrases without meaning
20
Q
From natural to artificial systems
A
- Alexa and siri
- Programmed system
- Fast moving technology and development
21
Q
Sound in Space
A
- The ear is 1D.
- You have two ears so you hear where something is by the differences in two ears
- Look at time distance, the signal comes later to certain points than others which is more precise
- This is highly developed by bats
22
Q
The cocktail party effect
A
- The ability to focus on one particular sound (listen to several conversations at once)
- Easier for younger people to do this
- Cocktail party effect would mean you can’t distinguish any conversation from each other
- Conversations are masking each other
- ## Binaural unmasking, what we do to separate the voices and where the voices are coming from (direction)
23
Q
Psychology of language
A
- Many different languages in the world
- 7, 000 languages
- In the last 50 years we lost 230 languages
- Attempts to rescue languages
- Travel, communication and migration causes the death in languages
- Future, we need to be more diverse
