The Auditory Sensation
The audition or auditory sensation is another name for the hearing sensation. It is one of the five basic senses. The ability to comprehend sound through detecting vibrations is referred to by the phrase. The human body detects vibrations through the ear organ. Deafness is a condition in which a person is unable to hear. When the sound from the stimulus goes through the ear and is detected, it is transduced into the human body system and then communicated to the brain for coding and interpretation. The auditory sense makes use of the energy in the form of waves. The waves are in the form of sound created when there is a disturbance in the air particles. The sound waves can travel through the air. The ear collects these vibrations when they reach it. Form here a transduction process begins. The vibration is transduced into the neural messages in the body and sent to the brain. Sound waves are similar to other waves in that they have amplitude ad frequency. Amplitude can be defined as the height of a wave, and this property is what determines how loud a sound is. The loudness can be measured in decibels. Frequency can be defined as the length of a wave. It is a property that determines the pitch of the sound and is measured if megahertz. High pitch sounds have a high frequency. (prof(Dr) C Jayan, 2011). Their waves are packed closely together. Consequently, low pitch sounds also have low frequencies and their waves are scarcely spaced.
The Hearing Process
Once the sound reaches a person, it is collected in the outer ear known as pinna, the sound wave travels down the ear canal and travels towards the eardrum or tympanic membrane. The eardrum vibrates once the sound waves hit it. It is attached to a series of small bones called ossicles. The eardrum is connected to the hammer or Malleus connected to the anvil which is again connected to the stirrup\/stapes. The vibration coming from the eardrum is transmitted by the three bones to the oval window. The oval window is a membrane similar to the eardrum, but it is attached to the cochlea. The cochlea is filled with fluid and is oval snail-shaped. When the oval window vibrates, the fluid inside moves. The base of the cochlea (oval shape) is a basilar membrane. The membrane is connected to the organ of Corti. The organ of Corti contains neurons that are activated by movement. The movement of the fluid moves the hairs cells which in turn imitate transduction. The hairy organs of the Corti fires. The impulses are then transmitted through the auditory nerves to the brain for transmission. Once in the brain, the temporal lobe perceives this sensory input and feedback relayed though the same path.
Processing and Discrimination
The sound waves need to be maintained from the source so that the brain can keep processing them at a constant rhythm. At times the frequency and the amplitude of the sound might change in an uneven manner. When this happens the hearing, the process has to be restarted over repeatedly. The input waves do not follow any pattern, and neither does the processing. The point at which person can hear (perceive) the frequencies half the time is called threshold. This point can be determined by calculating a person’s ability to pay attention to a specific stimulus repeatedly.
However, when there are different stimulus transmitting to the ear the brain discriminates some of the information. (McEntantlier, 2012) From a subjective point of view, the nature of the stimulus and the incoming sound wave play a role in discrimination process. These include the pitch and frequency of the sound and the distance between the source and the ear. The pitch theirs explain how a person hears different pitches and tones. The place theory proposes that the hair cells in the cochlea respond to different pitches differently by moving to the opposite to one direction/place when they sense a low pitch and moving to the opposite side when they sense a high pitch. In the frequency theory, researchers demonstrate the accuracy of the place theory when one senses high pitch. However, this is not the case with the low pitch. Rather the rate at which cells fire is what enables one to detect low pitch. The frequency at which the hair cells fire is what determines the pitch we experience.
Importance of Detection Sensitivity
Acquiring knowledge of detection sensitivity is important in various ways. First understanding the hearing process helps get insight about the deafness. Detection sensitivity provides an explanation about how threshold affects the ability to differentiate different stimulus.
References
McEntantlier, R. (2012). Ap Psychology. Barron, 53.
prof(Dr) C Jayan. (2011). basic psychology. Kerala: Calicut Univeristy.
