By
Manuel Malmierca, Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Hearing, The Institute of Neuroscience of 'Castilla y Leon' (INCyL), Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Spain
Dexter Irvine, Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Australia
Description
All natural auditory signals, including human speech and animal communication signals, are spectrally and temporally complex, that is,
they contain multiple frequencies and their frequency composition, or spectrum, varies over time. The ability of hearers to identify
and localize these signals depends on analysis of their spectral composition. For the overwhelming majority of human listeners spoken
language is the major means of social communication, and this communication therefore depends on spectral analysis. Spectral analysis
begins in the cochlea, but is then elaborated at various stages along the auditory pathways in the brain that lead from the cochlea to
the cerebral cortex. The broad purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive account of the way in which spectral information is
processed in the brain and the way in which this information is used by listeners to identify and localize sounds.
Included in series
International Review of Neurobiology
Audience:
Psychophysicists, neurophysiologists, audiologists, otolaryngologists and neuroscientists.
