BCS 221: Lecture Schedule

Only students who are enrolled in the course may access the readings online. You must be logged into Blackboard to download the course readings.

Week 1: January 12, 14: Wed: Introduction and Course Organization; What we hear, and how we hear it. (Yost, Chapter 1) | pdf

Part 1: Physical acoustics and its relation to hearing

Fri: Sinusoids – Sound is a form of simple harmonic motion (Chapter 2)
Week 2: January 17, 19, 21: Mon: Martin Luther King Day – NO CLASS; Wed: Sound transmission I – Sound pressure and intensity; interference and sound shadows; (Chapter 3) | pdf; Fri: Sound transmission II – Acoustic impedance; sound fields. | pdf
Week 3: Jan. 24, 26, 28: Mon: Complex sounds I – Temporal and spectral structure of periodic sounds: complex tones, amplitude and frequency modulations (Chap. 4) | pdf; Wed: Complex sounds II – Temporal and spectral structure of aperiodic sounds: transients, clicks and click trains, and noise.; Fri: Sound analysis – Resonators and filters, Fourier analysis, distortion (Chapter 5) | pdf
Week 4: January 31, February 2, 4: **Mon: Exam 1 – Physical Acoustics (Yost, chapters 1 to 5)

Part 2: The Peripheral Auditory System

Wed: Outer and middle ear – amplification by the ear canal, directional properties of head and pinna; Resonance, amplification and impedance matching by the middle ear; middle ear reflexes (Chapter 6) | pdf; Fri: Inner ear – Structure and innervation of the cochlea. (Chapter 7) | pdf
Week 5: Feb. 7, 9, 11: Mon: Cochlear Mechanics – Traveling waves and hair cell excitation; place coding; filter properties of the basilar membrane. | pdf; Wed: Transduction – Cochlear potentials; hair cell receptors and transduction, receptor potentials. (Chapter 8) | pdf; Fri: Hair cell Motility, the Cochlear Amplifier – Mechano-electrical amplification of basilar membrane motion, tuning, cochlear emissions. | pdf

Part 3: Auditory Sensation: Psychoacoustics

Week 6: Feb. 14, 16, 18: Mon: Auditory sensitivity – Thresholds of audibility; temporal integration; frequency, intensity, and temporal discrimination. (Chapter 10); Wed: Masking I – Tone and noise masking (Chapter 11); psychophysical tuning curves. | pdf; Fri: Masking II – Critical bands; Non-simultaneous masking | pdf
Week 7: Feb. 21, 23, 25: **Mon Feb 21: Exam 2 – Auditory Periphery (Yost chapters 6 – 8); Wed: No class – Assoc. for Research in Otolaryngology Annual Meeting, Washington, DC; Fri: Sound localization I (Chapter 12) – absolute and relative localization in horizontal and vertical space. | pdf
Week 8: Feb. 28, March 2, 4: Mon: Sound localization II - Binaural hearing; lateralization of interaural time and level disparities; binaural release from masking. | pdf; Wed: Loudness and pitch (Chapter 13) | pdf; Fri: Sound source determination I – spectral separation, profile analysis, harmonicity, and timbre (Chapter 14) | pdf
**Week 9: March 5 – 13 Spring Break
Week 10: Mar. 14, 16, 18: Mon: Sound source determination II – Spatial separation, stream segregation, transients, informational masking, co-modulation masking release; modulation detection interference. | pdf; Wed: Speech – Phonemes (vowels and consonants); categorical perception; phonological and motor theories of speech perception | pdf

Part 4: The Central Auditory System

Yost, Chapter 15; Hackett, 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. Available on Blackboard; Fri: Overview of central auditory system – Anatomical and functional organization of ascending and descending auditory pathways. | pdf
Week 11: March 21, 23, 25: **Mon Mar 21: Exam 3 – Auditory Sensation and Perception (Yost chapters 10 – 14); Wed: Auditory nerve I – Responses to pure tones in quiet and noise; Frequency tuning; Phase-locking to tones and AM; efferent control of cochlear output (Chapter 9) | pdf; Fri: Auditory nerve II – Pitch coding of complex tones and AM; frequency modulations; rate-place coding of speech sounds.
Week 12: March 28, 30, April 1: Mon: Spectral tuning and integration – Emergence of feature selectivity. | pdf; Wed: Temporal processing – repetition pitch; spectrotemporal interactions.; Fri: Spatial processing I – Initial processing of interaural disparities and spectral cues. | pdf
**Term Paper due Monday April 11**
Week 13: Apr. 4, 6, 8: Mon: Spatial processing II – Representation of space in auditory midbrain and cortex. | pdf | pdf2; Wed: Auditory Cortex I – Cortical processing of pitch, vocalizations, communication sounds | pdf; Fri: Auditory Cortex II – Perception and processing of musical sounds. | pdf
Week 14: Apr. 11, 13, 15: Mon: Plasticity – Maintenance and modification of structure and function through experience and injury. | pdf

Part 5: Auditory Disorders

Wed: Hearing loss I – Noise exposure, ototoxicity, disease (Chapter 16) | pdf; Fri: Hearing loss II – Heredity, aging | pdf
Week 15: April 18, 20, 22: Mon: Perceptual disorders – Phonological impairments; amusia.; Wed: Language disorders – Aphasia; dyslexia.; Fri: Hearing restoration – Cochlear implants; hair cell regeneration; training | pdf
Week 16: Apr. 25, 27: Mon: Review and wrap-up; **Wed. Exam 4 – Central Auditory System, Auditory Disorders (Yost Chapters 15 – 16; Hackett & Kaas (2002)

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