Questions tagged [hearing]
For questions regarding the sensation (transduction) and perception of sound information by the brain in humans and animals
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How do the outer hair cells amplify the traveling wave?
Depending on the movement frequency, outer hair cells can stretch and contract, amplifying the amplitude of the traveling wave at the basilar membrane.
How can they do this exactly? what is the point ...
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1answer
31 views
Deflection of the basilar membrane
The basilar membrane becomes thicker and heavier from the basal end to the apical upper end - this is why high frequencies are perceived in the lower range and low frequencies in the upper range.
But ...
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1answer
65 views
What is the cochlear frequency response by number of hair cells?
I am trying to recreate the cochlea/basilar membrane response to sound and want to know how the hair cells are bucketed or binned by frequency, so an ideal list would be something like 10 kHz - 12 kHz:...
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How to produce the ganzfeld effect?
This is the closest stack exchange site I could find that suites my question: How can I best produce the ganzfeld effect? I tried with noise canceling earbuds, white noise, and a paper sleep mask.
I'...
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36 views
Any studies about the effect of listening to audio in a foreign language while studying?
Note: this is my first question on this site. If my question is not clear enough, lacks context or I forgot some rule, please tell it in the comments so I can edit my question appropriately.
...
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1answer
131 views
How can someone asleep recognize a very brief sound?
I have a snoring girlfriend. To interrupt her snoring, I make a sound similar to the very brief sound gas makes when opening a soda can or bottle (had a snoring brother, I know this technique works ...
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1answer
93 views
Is mapping sound frequencies to the vertical axis universal?
Shrill notes are said to be "high", and rumbles are said to be "low". Humans seem to metaphorically map frequency to the vertical axis, and in the cultures that I know of, high frequency is ...
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0answers
180 views
E-prime: Inline script to present sounds from a text file
I am trying to build an experiment that: (1) present Instructions, (2) plays a list of sounds from a text file and (3) says Goodbye. I have problem on (2) which for the moment is built with an inline ...
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1answer
1k views
Proportion of cortex dedicated for vision and hearing
I have read in some websites that the percentage of the cortex devoted to processing visual information is from 30-66% with some claiming even 90%. And compared to that, only about 3% is dedicated to ...
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1answer
92 views
Is it possible to condition oneself to not be bothered by distressing sounds?
It is my (layman's) understanding that a domestic cat learns to meow in a specific tone (I've even read that it can resemble a human baby crying) in order to get the owner's attention.
Regardless of ...
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2answers
41 views
How to prime gammatone filters?
A set of gammatone band-pass filters are often used to model the filtering performed by the human inner ear. For example, "BatSLAM: Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Using Biomimetic Sonar" Jan ...
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2answers
138 views
What are the temporal limits of the auditory system?
I would like to know what the time scale is of the human ear. I mean, what is the shortest duration of a sound that a human ear can notice
and what is the longest duration of a sound that a human ear ...
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How does speed listening work?
I've recently gotten into listening to podcasts. Over time, as I get accustomed to the speaker's voice, I'm able to increase the speed of the podcast to as high as 3x speed. It still feels "normal" to ...
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1answer
90 views
Is speech perceived as set of phonemes by human?
I am currently trying to understand how speech is being perceived and understood. I am currently aware of the workings of inner ears and the basilar membrane and its frequency filtering, but going ...
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0answers
147 views
Why do you hear music inside your head when wearing headphones, even when you hold the phones some distance from your head?
When you wear headphones for listening to music you hear the music inside your head. Even when you hold the two speakers at the same distance from your ears the music is still heard inside your head. ...
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39 views
What timing of visual emphasis paired with a spoken word provides the best cognition? [closed]
I am working on an animation in which there are three somewhat small font words (Environmental, Social, and Economic) together with three colored horizontal histogram bars on each side of the labels ...
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1answer
106 views
What is the bias called when listening to the same sound repeatedly?
When people are made to listen to the same sounds repeatedly, it can trigger placebo effects, i.e., they think they've heard something new or different the $ Nth $ time around, when in fact they haven'...
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1answer
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How do congenitally deaf and mute people think?
If a person is born deaf and dumb, how can they think? In "what language" do these people think? Do they develop their own inner language?
Unfortunately I have not found an answer, and I actually ...
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2answers
909 views
Can binaural beats be generated with carrier tones outside the audible frequency range?
I know that binaural beats are a controversial subject, as they might not work for everyone. In my own tests on myself I shuffled multiple recordings of binaural beats, with stereo headphones on, not ...
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1answer
275 views
Why I read by hearing the words?
This question requires very little background:
1. English is my second language and I find myself thinking mostly in it
2. I tend to listen more than to read it
When I read a book from the computer ...
2
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1answer
62 views
Hard to think when hearing audible speech
I don't know what is the exact cause of this but when there is some song playing around me or someone is talking near me its harder for me to concentrate my thoughts or imagine something. However pure ...
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1answer
183 views
Do non-human primates exhibit the Kiki/Bouba effect?
After understanding that cats cannot experience the Kiki/Bouba effect, I wonder if smart non-human primates can experience it. There is evidence suggesting that Chimpanzees associate high pitch with ...
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2answers
90 views
Interclick interval resolution of the ear
Let's say I have an almost perfect metronome which ticks at 60 beats per minute, except for one beat that is slightly off from time to time.
What's the maximum error this metronome can have without a ...
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1answer
164 views
How do deaf people get feedback on their speech?
When we speak, our ears give us feedback on the same. This, presumably, helps in learning a language and adjusting the volume of our speech. How do deaf people get this feedback to learn a new ...
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0answers
51 views
Why might computerised voices in the background be more disruptive than human voices? [closed]
The Scenario:
Imagine yourself in a classroom with students. The teacher told all students that have not read the text for today, should do it now. You have not read it and therefore you begin to read ...
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2answers
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Why do people tap their foot to music?
When listening to music, I often see people tap their feet either to the main beat or the dominating rhythm of the music.
Why do people do this?
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2answers
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What is the difference between noise reduction and noise cancellation?
I had a question about sirens in another section which led to a question in physics section...and I was told my question is more suitable for cognitive science. So here it goes:
There are many kinds ...
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1answer
147 views
Does "hearing" give off an electronic signal? [closed]
I'm thinking in terms of the middle ear and the very intricate and tiny bones that process a "sound wave" into "what we hear." Is there an output to the middle ear ossicle chain bones such that a ...
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1answer
1k views
How do we hear our inner voice?
How do we perceive inner speech? Does it follow the same neural pathways as normal acoustic speech? If yes, what is the extent of overlap between the two neural pathways?
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1answer
4k views
How does the inner ear encode sound intensity?
Different areas of the inner ear (the cochlea) are sensitive to different acoustic frequencies. Hence, the cochlea basically performs a fast Fourier transform on the audio signal. This spectral ...
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1answer
33 views
Blocking out unwanted sound sources
Suppose you are in a room with two other persons, both of them talking. If you want to hear one of them, you are able to block out the other even though he is talking (although not very loud). How our ...
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1answer
90 views
What is the maximum time difference to still associate an acoustic and visual event?
I am developing a game where the music needs to be synchronized to the actual game logic. That means that some objects in the game react to events in the music. Of course, the music will never be ...
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1answer
148 views
Increasing pitch perception of the same auditory stimuli
I was trying to work up a small clip of repeating beep sounds I recorded from a mobile game. This series of sounds, when played, gave an unmistakable perception of increasing pitch with every ...
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1answer
204 views
Any link between IQ and a person's ability to create or mimic sounds?
Reading some articles about animals and speech, and it just brushes a bit of the neurology of it, but that got me curious:
Is there any link between a person's (or an animal's) mimicry skill and/or ...
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2answers
352 views
Can people with absolute pitch identify the exact frequency, or simply the pitch class?
Absolute pitch can be defined as the ability to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone.
When people claim to have absolute pitch, does this mean they have ...
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1answer
73 views
What is the effect of gradual increase of speech speed on speech comprehension?
When I am watching a YouTube video with normal speed I can understand everything with no problem. When I speed up the video to 1.25x my understanding of what someone is saying is a bit worse, but ...
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1answer
73 views
Hearing Loss and Potentially hearing more
I've been diagnosed since I was younger (2nd grade) with a hearing impairment. Basically the nerve hairs on my cochlea are burned and I don't pick up 70% of the frequencies around me in my right ear.
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2answers
324 views
How to test whether a person is Left-Eared or Right-Eared?
It is well-known that the majority of humans have left-right preferences when using their hands or feet. But it is perhaps less well-known that the same can be true for our eyes and ears.
I once ...
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1answer
96 views
Research on the van Norden percept
What are the latest research and explanations concerning this auditory effect? I haven't managed to turn up much on the net, so just to check that I've named it correctly, my experience of it was ...
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0answers
438 views
What are the brain regions related to tinnitus shown in this figure?
I am interested in learning about the neural mechanisms behind tinnitus, and was wondering if someone could help me to name the parts of the brain on this image that show increased activity in ...
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0answers
80 views
Why can good music raise goosebumps?
Listening to really good music right now, I was wondering why it raises goosebumps.
Is there any physiological reason for this reaction to specific wavelengths or something?
Due sometimes strong ...
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2answers
530 views
Is there a difference between hearing and decoding the sound?
I presume that deafness is the inability of hearing any sounds. And I presume that it may also be possible to be less able to decode sounds. In other words, an inability to translate or understand the ...
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1answer
293 views
Dichotic listening tasks and crosstalk
In a dichotic listening task where participants listen to different (frequency-wise) musical tones through headphones, is cross talk to the contralateral cochlea of each ear through bone conduction a ...
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2answers
832 views
Long term effect of using noise generators
Some people use noise generators as http://playnoise.com/ to reduce distraction by background noise. Is there any research on the long term effects of this? Does this affect the neuronal connections ...
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3answers
192 views
Acoustic and light wave coherency?
I know how some music notes combinations sound pleasing, yet others do not. Does the same occur with different frequencies of light (colors)? Since spectral color and acoustic pitch are both defined ...
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1answer
712 views
Does your voice pitch affect your perceived authority?
I heard a claim that people with lower voice pitch are perceived as more credible than people with higher pitch.
Is there any research on this?
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2answers
207 views
Can one alter their auditory perception?
I'm coming from the idea that the way we perceive sound is a reaction to a certain signal, sent to our brain by ears. Of course this feeling intensifies as volume of the sound increases and our ears ...
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0answers
139 views
What is a short, drug-induced "blackout" experience called? [closed]
I know of anecdotal evidence for the following drug-related side-effects:
It can happen while getting used to a new drug, or when quitting a drug. Probably also some other situations.
The feeling ...
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3answers
576 views
Which is the shortest duration for a pitch difference in audio signals to be perceived by the human auditory system?
If I have two short audio signals, for example pure tone C4 and C#4, so half-tone difference, how short can they be that the human can hear the difference in pitch? Was there any blind-experiment/...
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2answers
265 views
How is tone volume encoded?
I am wondering whether increasing the volume would result in (a) a neuron that was already firing to now increase its spike rate, (b) a different group of neurons to add their activity to the ...
