The hearing brain

Question 1

Sounds with a sinusoid waveform (when pressure change is plotted against time)

Answer 1

Pure tones

Question 2

The perceived property
of sounds that enables
them to be ordered from
low to high

Answer 2

Pitch

Question 3

The perceived intensity of
the sound

Answer 3

Loudness

Question 4

The lowest frequency component of a complex sound that determines the perceived pitch

Answer 4

Fundamental frequency

Question 5

If the fundamental
frequency of a complex
sound is removed, then
the pitch is not perceived
to change (the brain
reinstates it)

Answer 5

Missing fundamental
phenomenon

Question 6

The perceptual quality
of a sound enables us
to distinguish between
different musical instru-
ments

Answer 6

Timbre

Question 7

Part of the inner ear that
converts liquid-borne
sound into neural im-
pulses

Answer 7

Cochlea

Question 8

A membrane within the
cochlea containing tiny
hair cells linked to neural
receptors

Answer 8

Basilar membrane

Question 9

The main cortical area to
receive auditory-based
thalamic input

Answer 9

Primary auditory cortex

Question 10

Part of the secondary
auditory cortex, with
many projections from
the primary auditory
cortex

Answer 10

Belt region

Question 11

Part of the secondary
auditory cortex, receiving
projections from the
adjacent belt region

Answer 11

Parabelt region

Question 12

The principle that sounds
close to each other in
frequency are represented by neurons that are spatially close to each
other in the brain

Answer 12

Tonotopic organization

Question 13

In fMRI, a short break
in scanning to enable
sounds to be presented
in relative silence

Answer 13

Sparse scanning

Question 14

The difference in timing
between a sound arriving
in each ear (used to
localize sounds).
Inter-aural intensity
difference

Answer 14

Inter-aural time difference

Question 15

The difference in loud-
ness between a sound
arriving in each ear (used
to localize sounds)

Answer 15

Inter-aural intensity
difference

Question 16

An internal model of
sounds get distorted by
the unique shape of
one’s own ears and head

Answer 16

Head-related transfer
function

Question 17

A part of the auditory
cortex (posterior to the
primary auditory cortex)
that integrates auditory
information with non-auditory information, for ex-
ample to enable sounds
to be separated in space

Answer 17

Planum temporale

Question 18

The division of a complex
auditory signal into
different sources or
auditory objects

Answer 18

Auditory stream
segregation

Question 19

An ERP component that
occurs when an auditory
stimulus deviates from
previously presented
auditory stimuli

Answer 19

Mismatch negativity
(MMN)

Question 20

The problem of attending to
a single auditory stream in
the presence of competing
streams (with different
acoustic and spatial
properties)—for instance,
attending to one person’s
voice in a noisy room of
other voices

Answer 20

Cocktail party problem

Question 21

An auditory agnosia in
which music perception
is affected more than
the perception of other
sounds

Answer 21

Amusia

Question 22

A developmental difficulty in perceiving pitch relationships

Answer 22

Tone-deafness (congenital amusia)

Question 23

Changes in the stress
pattern of speech (e.g.,
to add emphasis), the
rhythm of speech or the
intonation (e.g., rising/
falling pitch to indicate
questioning or sarcasm)

Answer 23

Prosody

Question 24

Patterns of pitch over
time

Answer 24

Melody

Question 25

Type of auditory agnosia in which patients are able to identify environmental sounds and music but not speech

Answer 25

Pure word deafness

Question 26

Plots the frequency of sound (y-axis) over time (x-axis) with the intensity of the sound represented by how dark it is

Answer 26

Spectrogram

Question 27

Different spoken/acoustic renditions of the same phoneme

Answer 27

Allophones

Question 28

Horizontal stripes on the
spectrogram produced
with a relative free flow of
air (e.g., by vowels)

Answer 28

Formants

Question 29

Vibration of the vocal
cords that characterizes
the production of some
consonants

Answer 29

Voicing

Question 30

The production of one
phoneme is influenced
by the preceding and
proceeding phonemes

Answer 30

Co-articulation

Question 31

A white matter bundle that connects the temporoparietal region to the frontal lobes

Answer 31

Arcuate fasciculus

Question 32

An auditory percept derived from a fusion of mismatching heard speech and seen speech

Answer 32

McGurk illusion