Module 2

Question 1

Soundwave

Answer 1

Sound waves are patterns of air pressure changes.

Produced when force or pressure from a vibrating object sets the molecules of a particular medium into motion. Such pressure causes these molecules to move back and forth from their equilibrium position.

Question 2

Amplitude

Answer 2

The size of the pressure changes. The amount of pressure for each peak. A higher amplitude results in a louder sound.

The movement of molecules determines the amplitude of a sound. Amplitude is determined by the maximum displacement of air molecules. This displacement leads to pressure fluctuations in the air, expressed in units of decibel sound pressure level. Amplitude determines the loudness of a sound.

Question 3

Frequency

Answer 3

The number of cycles/peaks per second that the pressure changes repeat. Measured in hertz (Hz).
Frequency determines pitch. A higher frequency will result in a higher pitch.

Determined by the rate of movement of molecules set into motion by a vibrating object. This movement is measured in cycles per second (Hz or hertz). Gives sound a particular pitch.

Question 4

Eardrum

Answer 4

A membrane that transmits signals from the external world to the inside of the ear.

It vibrates in response to soundwaves passed through the auditory canal and transmits these vibrations to three small bones in the middle ear.

Question 5

Hair cells

Answer 5

Receptors for hearing located within the cochlea. They are located on the organ of corti. When the hair bundles on top of the hair cells are stimulated to move, neurotransmitters are released from the base of the hair cell to the auditory/cochlear nerve. This is where the electrical signal from the neurotransmitters is carried to the brain.

Question 6

Auditory/cochlear nerve

Answer 6

Carries electrical signals released from the neurotransmitters at the base of the hair cells to the brain.

Question 7

Auditory receiving area (A1)

Answer 7

Electrical signals from the auditory nerve are passed to the brainstem, then the midbrain in the brainstem, then to the thalamus and finally to the temporal lobe (A1 auditory receiving area in the primary auditory cortex). A1 is crucial for basic auditory processing and has a specific tonotopic representation of how the sound frequencies are represented on the cochlear.

Question 8

Core area

Answer 8

Includes the primary auditory cortex (A1) and some nearby areas. Maps each point in the cochlea with corresponding cells.

Question 9

Tonotopic representation

Answer 9

The systematic arrangement of neurons based on their response to tones of different frequencies, found in various levels of the auditory system and cortex.

The primary auditory cortex (A1) has a tonotopic map of how the sound frequencies are represented on the cochlea.

Question 10

Binaural cues

Answer 10

A type of location cue that depends on both ears. Allow us to determine the azimuth (left-right) position of sounds. The two cues are interaural level difference and interaural time difference.

Question 11

Monoaural cues

Answer 11

A type of location cue that depends on one ear. They allow us to determine the elevation of a sound. The primary monoaural cue is called spectral cues.

Question 12

Acoustic shadow

Answer 12

The reduction in sound intensity at the further ear created because the head acts as a barrier between the two ears. This assists us in determining the sounds azimuth. The far ear is affected by acoustic shadow for high-frequency sounds but not low-frequency sounds as these can skip over the head.

Question 13

Aphasia

Answer 13

Problems with language abilities. Impacts communication ability. Individuals may struggle with word retrieval and sentence construction. This makes it challenging to express thoughts and understand spoken language.

Question 14

Formants

Answer 14

Peak frequencies of produced sound. They can be visualised in a spectrogram.

Question 15

Place of articulation

Answer 15

Describes the locations of the articulation. Where in the vocal tract the constriction of airflow takes place.

E.g. the place of articulation moves from the back of the mouth to the front when saying ‘g’, ‘d’ and ‘b’ respectively.

Question 16

Phonemes

Answer 16

Manageable units of sound. The shortest segment of speech that, if changed, would change the meaning of a word.

E.g. ‘bat’

Question 17

Morpheme

Answer 17

Related to language interpretation. They are the smallest units of language that have meaning.

E.g. ‘Sound’ only has one meaning, thus one morpheme. ‘Soundwave’ is a ‘sound’ and a ‘wave’, thus it has two morphemes.

Question 18

Perceptual constancy

Answer 18

The perception that the sound of a phoneme is the same even when the acoustic signal is changed by coarticulation.

We perceive the sound of a particular phoneme as constant even when the phoneme appears in different contexts that change its acoustic signal.

Question 19

Categorical perception

Answer 19

Occurs when stimuli that exist along a continuum are perceived as divided into discrete categories. This continuum is a property called voice onset time.

E.g. perception of ‘da’ changes as the voice onset time increases, at which point listeners perceive ‘ta’

Question 20

Word superiority effect

Answer 20

People recognise letters faster if they are presented in a word, such as “chair” rather than being presented alone such as “C” or in a non-word such as “HDCW”.

Question 21

Phonemic restoration effect

Answer 21

A phoneme in a spoken word in a sentence can be perceived even if it is obscured by noise. Our speech perception can account for missing sounds based on contextual cues.

Question 22

Syntactic priming

Answer 22

Hearing a statement with a particular syntactic construction increases the chances that a sentence will be produced with the same construction.

It can lead people to coordinate the grammatical form of their statements during a conversation.

The person who speaks first primes the next person to use a similar syntactic structure.

Question 23

Speech segmentation

Answer 23

The perception of individual words in a continuous acoustic signal. For example, being able to identify pauses between words in a sentence rather than hearing one continuous unbroken acoustic signal. The acoustic signal is received and interpreted using bottom-up processing, and meaning is gained from using top-down processing to place that acoustic signal in context.

E.g. the cafeteria effect

Question 24

Word frequency effect

Answer 24

The fact that humans respond more rapidly to high-frequency words (words that appear more frequently in a language). E.g. ‘home’ occurs more frequently per million words than ‘hike’.

Question 25

Biased dominance

Answer 25

When words have two or more meanings with different, non-equal dominances.

Question 26

Causal inferences

Answer 26

Understanding or deducing the cause of an action or event from the information provided, often implicitly, in discourse. Based on general knowledge about the effects of actions and the typical outcomes of events (inductive reasoning).

Events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurred in a previous sentence.

E.g. Sharon took an aspirin. Her headache went away.

Question 27

Situation models

Answer 27

Mental representations of what they’re reading or listening to.

These representations do not include words, instead it is a representation of the situation as a whole. People simulating what is happening in their minds.

Question 28

N400 response

Answer 28

A neural response that occurs in response to unexpected words. Where stimuli are unexpected, the amplitude of neural activity is larger and negatively skewed, occurring 400 milliseconds after the incorrect word.

The N400 response has found to be abnormal in patients with schizophrenia.

Question 29

Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 29

Also known as receptive aphasia. Involves difficulty with language comprehension. Caused by damage to Wernicke’s area. Patients with Wernicke’s aphasia can speak fluently, but their words don’t always make sense.

They may add non-existent words to sentences and experience confusion when others do not understand them.

i.e. problems with language semantics, meaning of sentences and words

Question 30

Apraxia

Answer 30

A neurological disorder characterised by the inability to perform learned movements on command, even though the command is understood and there is willingness to perform the movement.