Auditory System: Recapitulation:
• Sound: Physics, Perception
– Characterizing: Frequency (pitch), Loudness
– Timing (sound source location; discriminating complex sounds)
– Weber-Fechner law: perceptions are logarithmic; just noticeable
differences are proportional to the value (of loudness or pitch)
• Pathway: cochlea – brainstem – cortex
– Ear: finely engineered to pick up sound
– Parallel processing of pitch, loudness, timing, (complex sounds)
– Higher along pathway -> more complex processing.
– “Physiology explains perception”: receptive fields, tuning curves,
place coding for pitch, loudness, sound source location. Similar to
sensory systems of vision, touch
• fMRI of language processing
• Plasticity (sensory experience or external manipulation).