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Topic 7 part 1 > Hearing part 1 > Flashcards

Hearing part 1 Flashcards

(75 cards)

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1
Q

Is perception and recognition influenced by knowledge?

A

Yes

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2
Q

What is sound?

A

a physical phenomenon
Pressure changes in air or another medium (waves)

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3
Q

What causes sound?

A

Vibrating/moving objects such as vocal cords, speaker diaphragm, car engine, fan

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4
Q

What does vibrating objects cause? (2)

A

Condensation and rarefaction

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5
Q

What is condensation

A

air molecules are pushed together - increase in pressure

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6
Q

What is rarefaction?

A

air molecules are spread out - decrease in pressure

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7
Q

What is the distal stimulus in hearing?

A

The thing generating the sound

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8
Q

What is the proximal stimulus in hearing?

A

sound waves at ear

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9
Q

What is the speed of sound in air?

A

343.2 m/s o4 1236 km/h

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10
Q

How long does it take for sound to travel 1 km?

A

2.9 seconds

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11
Q

How does sound compare to light for speed?

A

light travels a million times faster in air
sound is decently slow

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12
Q

What does a speaker cone do?

A

physically pushes against air

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13
Q

What generates pure tones?

A

tuning fork or computer

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14
Q

What are the three characteristics of pure tones?

A

Sine wave
Frequency
Amplitude

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15
Q

What is a sine wave?

A

a sinusoidal change in air pressure

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16
Q

What is frequency?

A

Number of cycles (of condensation and rarefaction) per second

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17
Q

What is amplitude?

A

The size of the air pressure change
How forceful condensation and rarefaction is

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18
Q

What is sound frequency measured in?

A

Hertz = cycles per second

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19
Q

What is the perception of frequency (physical)?

A

pitch

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20
Q

How do we describe frequency?

A

High or low

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21
Q

What is amplitude measured in?

A

decibels = dB

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22
Q

What is the equation for decibels?

A

dB = 20 x log (air pressure in micropascals/20 uPa)

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23
Q

Is amplitude usually measured relative to reference?

A

Yes

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24
Q

How do we describe amplitude? What is the perception of amplitude?

A

Loud or soft

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25
Can decibels be negative?
Yes
26
Decibels increase on a log scale. How would an air pressure of 20 be represented in decibels compared to an air pressure of 2000?
it is 100x as loud but the decibels would only go from 0 to 40
27
What is the barely audible threshold for decibels?
0
28
What is the pain threshold for decibels?
140
29
How can complex tones we made?
summing pure tones
30
Can any sound be described as a sum of pure tones? Fourier analysis
Yes
31
How can you represent tones instead of time?
frequency
32
What are periodic tones?
complex tone waveform repeating regularly
33
What is the repetition rate of of periodic tones?
fundamental frequency
34
What are harmonics?
pure tone components of of complex tones
35
What is the 1st harmonic?
the fundamental frequency
36
What is the second harmonic?
2x the fundamental frequency
37
What is the third harmonic?
3x the fundamental frequency
38
What happens if you remove the tone at the 1st harmonic?
still repeats at fundamental frequency
39
What does a spectrogram show?
How frequencies in sound change over time
40
What does this spectrogram represent?
Sounds like frequency is increasing
41
What is this called?
Square wave
42
What is white noise?
a random mix of frequencies
43
What is a square wave?
energy at a bunch of harmonics that sounds harsh
44
If frequency is ramping down that does the time diagram look like?
Waves getting further apart
45
If frequency is ramping up what does the time diagram look like?
Closer together
46
What does the time diagram look like for a square wave?
rectangles
47
What does the time diagram look like for white noise?
bunch of different frequencies together
48
What does the waveform of speech look like? What about the spectrogram?
Very complex sound with different parts
49
What is loudness?
Perceptual quality most closely related to level or amplitude of an auditory stimulus
50
Does Loudness = amplitude?
no - not a direct linear relationship
51
What does an audibility curve show?
Loudness varies with frequency
52
What is the threshold of feeling?
where you start physically feeling the sound
53
What are equal loudness curves? What thing that we hear are found along these curves?
all points along each line sounds about the same conversational speech
54
What is the audibility curve?
threshold of hearing that varies with frequency - lowest amplitude we can hear
55
What frequencies are we most sensitive to?
5000 Hz
56
According to the audibility curve, when do you need higher decibels to detect sound?
at low frequencies
57
What frequency and decibels can humans hear?
20 Hz to 20000 Hz and 8dB to 150 dB
58
What does the audibility curve show overall?
Quietest detectable sound varies greatly with frequency For 40 dB reference, loudness varies more with frequency For 80 dB reference loudness is similar across frequencies
59
What is pitch?
Perceptual quality we describe as high and low
60
Is pitch the same thing as frequency?
No
61
What is pitch related to?
fundamental frequency - rate at which pattern repeats
62
What is tone height?
perceptual experience of the relative highness or lowness of a sound goes up as frequency increases Generally goes up with fundamental frequency
63
What is tone chroma? Give an example
notes whose fundamentals are multiples of two have the same chroma Different A notes have the same chroma: A1= 55.0 frequency, A2 = 110.0 frequency, A3 = 220 frequency
64
What tones have different chroma?
all the letter notes on a piano have different chroma A lower and higher C have the same chroma because the Hz is twice as much - 261.6 and 523.2
65
What is the chroma and the height for all A notes on a piano?
Have the same chroma but different height
66
What is the effect of the missing fundamental?
removing the fundamental frequency or another harmonic does not change the pitch
67
What would it sound like if you played all Cs on a piano vs all Cs except the lowest C vs all Cs except the highest C?
Hard to tell they are different
68
What is Timbre?
Difference between two tones that have the same loudness and pitch but still sound different
69
What is timbre related to?
number and strength of harmonics - mix of harmonics in the sound
70
If you played middle C on the horn, sax, violin at the same loudness and pitch what would differ?
the timbre
71
What are the two auditory illusions we looked at?
A Shepard-Risset glissando Constant spectrum melody
72
What does the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion sound like?
sounds like the pitch goes down forever but higher frequencies are being added back in
73
What is the constant spectrum melody illusion?
Sound at different frequencies that stays the same The frequency spectrum does not change over time but our perception changes
74
How does the constant spectrum melody illusion work?
energy at a cluster of nearby frequencies - goes in and out of phase and cancels each other out
75
What does the constant spectrum illusion tell us?
There is more to our perception of sound than just frequency because these frequencies stay the same over time but sound different

Topic 7 part 1 (6 decks)

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