BCS 221: Audition

Spring 2006

Skip to course schedule Download the syllabus pdf

Instructor

William O'Neill, Dept. of Neurobiology & Anatomy, SMD
Office: Med. Ctr. 6-8531
Phone: 275-4023

Textbook

William A. Yost (2000). Fundamentals of Hearing: An Introduction. (Fourth Edition) San Diego: Academic Press.
Occasional supplementary reading.

Grading

• Four quizzes and one term paper, each having the same weight.
• Quizzes: Preparation questions will be distributed one week in advance, and the actual quiz will be a sample of questions taken from this handout. You are encouraged to work together and help each other in studying for examinations. You can take make-ups for the first three quizzes if you would like to better your score: your score for that quiz would be the average of the original score and the make-up score. To be eligible to take the make-up examination you must first correctly answer all of the questions on the preparatory quiz, and hand in this work within 1 week of receiving the grade on the original in-class quiz.
• Paper: The paper should be about 5 pages long (double-spaced word processing document or pdf) and should be based on an analysis of the contemporary research literature. The topic should be cleared in advance. The paper must be your work and in your words. Any material taken from another source must be properly cited. Direct quotes are to be avoided, but if used, must be placed in quotation marks along with a citation. You can get ideas for the paper from any source, but first, it must provide an up-to-date representation of the research literature on the topic that you chose, and second, it must review original research publications. Students will deliver 3-5 minute oral summary of their papers in the last week of class. A 200-300 word abstract must be emailed to Dr. O'Neill for distribution to the class beforehand.
• Failure to take an examination on time will result in a grade of "0" unless a legitimate excuse is presented in writing (preferably ahead of time).
• Examination grades and the paper are graded on a 0 to 100 scale, not on a curve: an average (mean) score of 90 or more at the end of the course will be an A, 80 to 89 a B, 70 to 79 a C, and so forth.

Schedule and Readings

• Week 1: January 18, 20

• W: Organization of course; introduction to hearing science
• F: No Class (Dr. O'Neill out of town)

• Part 1: Physical principles of acoustics and their relation to hearing

• Week 2: January 23, 25, 27

• M: Yost, Ch 1 & 2 Mechanical vibrations and their implications for understanding speech and hearing
• W: Ch 3 Sound transmission: concepts of pressure and intensity; interference and sound shadows; the important concept of impedance.
• F: Ch 4 Complex stimuli and their analysis; Fourier transforms

• Week 3: January 30, February 1, 3

• M: Ch 5 Sound analysis, resonators and filters
• W: Review of physical acoustics and sensory implications

• Part 2: The Auditory Perhiphery

• F: Ch 6 Structure of the outer and middle ear

• Week 4: February 6, 8, 10

• **M: Quiz 1 Acoustics; Yost Ch 1-5
• W: Resonance and impedance: the audiogram
• F: "Sound coloring" - the pinna and its relationship to sound localization

• Week 5: February 13, 15, 17

• M: Ch 7 Structure of the inner ear
• W: Mechanical properties of the inner ear: Traveling waves, place coding
• F: Ch 8 The cochlea: a) Cochlear potentials

• Week 6: February 20, 22, 24

• M: b) Hair cell structure, transduction
• W: c) Outer hair cells - biomechanical amplification, cochlear emissions
• F: Informal review session (TBA)

• Week 7: February 27, March 1, 3

• **M: Quiz 2 The Ear; Yost Ch 6, 7, 8
• W: Ch 9 Auditory nerve - Structure, receptor innervation
• F: Auditory nerve - spontaneous activity, level coding, discharge patterns

• Week 8: March 6, 8, 10

• M: Auditory nerve - tuning curves, response areas, receptive fields
• W: Auditory nerve - coding of complex sounds
• F: Auditory nerve - Efferent modulation of cochlear output

• **March 11 - 19 Spring Break**

• Part 3: The Central Auditory System

• Ch 15 and also Webster D.B. (1992) "An overview of mammalian auditory pathways with an emphasis on humans." Ch 1 in Webster, D.B., Popper, A.N., & Fay, R.R. (Eds.) The mammalian auditory pathway: Neuroanatomy. New York: Springer-Verlag
• Hacket, T.A. and Kaas, J.H. (2002) Auditory processing in the primate brain. Handbook of Psychology: Biological Psychology (Vol. 3) M. Gallagher and R. Nelson (eds.) New York: John Wiley and Co. 187-210.

• Week 9: March 20, 22, 24

• M: Cochlear nucleus - parallel processing
• W: Superior olivary complex - coding of sound localization cues
• F: Lateral lemniscus and Inferior colliculus - Convergence and complex feature selectivity

• Week 10: March 27, 29, 31

• M: Auditory thalamus and cortex - Organization, Processing streams
• W: Auditory cortex - Plasticity, descending control
• **F: Quiz 3 Auditory nerve, Central Processing Yost Ch 9 & 15; Webster (1992), Hackett & Kaas (2002)

• Part 4: Psychoacoustics I: Perception of simple sounds

• Week 11: April, 3, 5, 7

• M: Ch 10 Auditory sensitivity
• W: Ch 11 Masking
• F: Ch 12 Binarual Hearing I

• Week 12: April 10, 12, 14

• M: Binarual hearing II
• W: Ch 13 Loudness and Pitch I
• F: Loudness and Pitch II

• **Paper due Monday April 17

• Part 5: Psychoacoustics II: Perception and Processing of Complex Sounds

• Week 13: April 17, 19, 21

• M: Ch 14 Perception of sound objects
• W: Speece perception
• F: Loudness and Pitch II

• Part 6: Special topics

• F: Ch 16 The abnormal auditory system

• Week 14: April 24, 26, 28

• M: Student presentations I
• W: Student presentations II
• F: Student presentations III

• Week 15: May 1, 3

• M: Student presentations IV
• **W: Quiz 4 Psychoacoustics Yost Ch 10-15

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