Sensory systems L2: Hearing Flashcards
What are the 3 parts of the ear?
- External ear
- Middle ear (bones –> smallest bone in body)
- Inner ear (Where sound waves are translated into fluid moves)
Why is the hearing system present?
- Translate air movement into fluid movement What is the importance of fluid movement?
- Amplification of the system
- Fluid also activates cells that are specialised to activate the brain (brain can only detect AP eg, sound waves, air movements = won’t be detected in this form)
____ and _____ portions transmit and amplify airborne sound waves to the fluid-filled ____ ear
External; middle; inner
What are 2 sensory systems in the inner ear contains receptors cells?
- Cochlea (for hearing)
- Vestibular apparatus (for equilibrium).
What are 2 aspects of hearing?
- Identification of the sounds (”what”)
- Know what kind of thing is making the sound (eg. can tell that the person is speaking english, if unfamiliar language = is a person that is having a conversation in a language I don’t know or don’t understand
- Localization of the sounds (“where”). Know where sound is coming from
What are sound waves?
mechanical disturbances that displace the molecules of a medium (solid, liquid or gas).
Sound cannot travel through a ______ (example: no sound in outer space).
vacuum
Because you need air (movement)
Sound waves have _____ density regions (compressed air) alternate with _____ density regions.
high; low
What is the speed of sound?
Speed of sound is 300 m/s in air and 1500 m/s in water.
What are the 3 factors factors influencing sound transmission?
- Absorption
- Reflection
- Refraction
- Ambient noise
What is absorption?
- Transformation of acoustic energy into heat energy in the medium or at its boundaries.
- Can be slowed down depending on distance as energy will be absorbed by environment
What is reflection?
When sound wave encounters a medium with different impedance, e.g. wall or water.
What are refraction?
When sound moves between media with different specific acoustic impedances, the direction of the incident sound wave will change due to the different propagation speeds. Change medium = change direction of sound waves
What are ambient noise?
Natural sources of sound caused by weather (e.g. wind, rain) combined with human made noise (e.g. traffic, room full of people).
Need ____ movements and ____ waves to actually hear (to be amplified) Dissipation of energy = less sound heard
air; sound
What are the 3 properties of sound?
- Pitch or tone
- Intensity or loudness
- Timbre or quality of sound
What is pitch or tone? EXAM
determined by the frequency of vibrations.
Humans can detect frequencies between 20 and 20000 Hz, but are more sensitive to 2000-4000 Hz. Animals? Think about bats…
What is intensity or loudness?
depends on the amplitude of the sound waves. Intensity is measured on a logarithmic scale in dB (decibel).
What are timbre or quality of the sound?
depends on overtones: different instruments playing the same note sound different, tuning fork has a pure tone.
What is the hearing threshold?
What is the sound pressure levels in other animals?
What are 3 characteristics of hearing?
- Air movement is important
- Frequency gives tone or pitch
- Amplitude gives loudness or intensity