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Hearing

Hearing

When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.

The Cochlea

The Cochlea

The cochlea is a coiled structure in the inner ear that contains hair cells—the sensory receptors of the auditory system. Sound waves are transmitted to the cochlea by small bones attached to the eardrum called the ossicles, which vibrate the oval window that leads to the inner ear. This causes fluid in the chambers of the cochlea to move, vibrating the basilar membrane.

Perception of Sound Waves

Perception of Sound Waves

The human ear is not equally sensitive to all frequencies in the audible range. It may perceive sound waves with the same pressure but different frequencies as having different loudness. Moreover, the perception of sound waves depends on the health of an individual's ears, which decays with age. The health of one's ears may also be affected by regular exposure to loud noises.
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same frequency...

Doppler Effect - II

Doppler Effect - II

The Doppler effect has several practical, real-world applications. For instance, meteorologists use Doppler radars to interpret weather events based on the Doppler effect. Typically, a transmitter emits radio waves at a specific frequency toward the sky from a weather station. The radio waves bounce off the clouds and precipitation and travel back to the weather station. The radio frequency of the waves reflected back to the station appears to decrease if the clouds or precipitation are moving...

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...

Factors Affecting Perception

Factors Affecting Perception

Perception is influenced by perceptual set, context, motivation, and emotion. Perceptual set, or perceptual expectancy, refers to the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, influenced by previous experiences and expectations. This phenomenon affects the interpretation of stimuli, creating a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that impact sensory perceptions of sound, taste, touch, and sight.
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...

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Differences in pitch between tones affect behaviour even when incorrectly identified in direction.

¹Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, PO Box 35, 40351, Jyväskylä, Finland. ruusuvir@psyka.jyu.fi

Neuropsychologia

|May 23, 2001

Summary

Neurological patients with extinction may process stimuli pre-attentively, even if not consciously identified. This study found reaction times varied with stimulus differences, supporting pre-attentive processing of undetected information.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Extinction is a neurological symptom where patients detect simultaneous stimuli on one side but not the other.
Previous hypotheses suggest extinguished stimuli are pre-attentively detected but lack attentive processing.
An alternative hypothesis posits that task information load explains this dissociation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether stimulus differences influence behavior even without full attentive processing in normal participants.
To test the hypothesis that pre-attentive detection occurs for stimuli not consciously identified.

Main Methods:

Normal participants performed forced-choice pitch discrimination tasks with varying tone differences.
Correctness and reaction times (RT) for pitch comparison decisions were measured.

Main Results:

Reaction times varied significantly with the magnitude of pitch difference, even for incorrect decisions.
This indicates that stimulus properties influence behavior irrespective of conscious identification.

Conclusions:

Findings support the hypothesis that stimulus differences can affect behavior without successful attentive processing.
This suggests a pre-attentive processing mechanism for undetected stimuli in normal participants.