As they say, audio is engineering, music is art.

....you can see engineering, you can touch engineering and you can measure
engineering but you can't hear engineering. Isn't hearing phenomena called
psychoacoustics?
"Psychoacoustics can be defined simply as the psychological study of hearing.
The aim of psychoacoustic research is to find out how hearing works. In other
words, the aim is to discover how sounds entering the ear are processed by the
ear and the brain in order to give the listener useful information about the
world outside.Some of the hot areas of psychoacoustic research at the time of
writing a
How do we separate sounds occurring simultaneously (e.g. two speakers speaking
at once)?
How do we localise sounds in space?
How do we determine the pitch of, say, a musical instrument?
How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different frequency
components?
Determining the abilities and limitations of human hearing is invaluable in
helping us to use sounds in our environment. Any device that produces sound for
the purpose of human listening should take account of what the listener's ears
are going to do with that sound. "

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:
How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different
frequency components?

It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the clever
bits.

--
*Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:
How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different
frequency components?

It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the clever
bits.


I was under the impression that different parts of the cochlea are sensitive
to different frequency bands...??

Roy




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In article ,
Roy rp wrote:
It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the
clever bits.


I was under the impression that different parts of the cochlea are
sensitive to different frequency bands...??

It's not linear, unlike a decent microphone. But the brain sorts that out
too.

--
*Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:

How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different
frequency components?


It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the clever
bits.


I woudn't argue that the brain does the clever bits, but the little I
have read about the subject shows that the operation of the cochlea is
nothing like any microphone I have seen, and is far from simple.

--
Nick

"Nick Gorham" wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:

How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different
frequency components?


It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the clever
bits.


I woudn't argue that the brain does the clever bits, but the little I
have read about the subject shows that the operation of the cochlea is
nothing like any microphone I have seen, and is far from simple.

Yeah.

Micro-hairs at different positions along the length of the inside of
the cochlea respond to different frequencies.

It's been years since my degree now, but the whole thing is rather
elaborate.

If you care, you (pl.) could google for something like

cochlea hairs frequencies "organ of corti" window

Hmm, just tried the above; it works ok.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 18:53:32 +0100, Nick Gorham
wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andy Evans wrote:

How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different
frequency components?


It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the clever
bits.


I woudn't argue that the brain does the clever bits, but the little I
have read about the subject shows that the operation of the cochlea is
nothing like any microphone I have seen, and is far from simple.

OK, it's a broad-band mechanical transducer connected to a series of
narrow-band electro-mechanical transducers. Still relatively simple.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In article , Nick Gorham
wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article , Andy Evans
wrote:

How does the cochlea separate a complex sound into its different
frequency components?


It doesn't - it's part of a simple microphone. The brain does the
clever bits.


I woudn't argue that the brain does the clever bits, but the little I
have read about the subject shows that the operation of the cochlea is
nothing like any microphone I have seen, and is far from simple.

It is. :-) I've been looking into this in recent years, and the current
physiological understanding of the cochlea is mind-bogglingly complex. One
model is to regard it as a non-linear dispersive set of linked transmission
lines (with characteristics that vary along their lengths) upon which the
sensors are a series of non-linear *active* resonant detectors whose
effective gain and bandwidth vary with the signal levels they experience.

(This only covers the physical/mechanical side. After that comes the
nerves.. and I've also ignored the biochemistry of what 'pumps' the active
parts of the system. ;- )

I've now written a few articles on this for mags like "Hi Fi News", and
some of the material is now at

http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioM...ing/index.html

if anyone is interested.

Bear in mind that what I've written is very much a *simplified* version of
what the physiologists now use as a model, but even so it has some
surprising implications for audio/hifi... :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 10:14:07 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:



I've now written a few articles on this for mags like "Hi Fi News", and
some of the material is now at

http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioM...ing/index.html

if anyone is interested.

Bear in mind that what I've written is very much a *simplified* version of
what the physiologists now use as a model, but even so it has some
surprising implications for audio/hifi... :-)

Slainte,

Jim

Jim, I remember well a demo I heard many years ago. The sound was of a
person reading words out slowly against a noise background. The
background was sufficiently loud that it was impossible to work out
the words. We listened several times, but still no intelligibility The
proctor then told us what a couple of the words actually were. As if
by magic, these words were suddenly clearly audible against the noise,
whilst the rest remained inaudible.

I don't suppose you know where a copy of this test may be found? It is
really impressive.

d
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

In article , Don Pearce
wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 10:14:07 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:


Bear in mind that what I've written is very much a *simplified* version
of what the physiologists now use as a model, but even so it has some
surprising implications for audio/hifi... :-)

Jim, I remember well a demo I heard many years ago. The sound was of a
person reading words out slowly against a noise background. The
background was sufficiently loud that it was impossible to work out the
words. We listened several times, but still no intelligibility The
proctor then told us what a couple of the words actually were. As if by
magic, these words were suddenly clearly audible against the noise,
whilst the rest remained inaudible.

Not come across the above, but it sounds like a neat example of how humans
can perform 'pattern recognition'. I'd presume this was occuring at a stage
later than the cochlea, though. Somewhere in the brain activity. Afraid
that I don't really know much about that beyond noting that humans seem to
have some remarkable abilities in such things.

I suppose that it is analogous in some ways to the visual test where a
sheet of white paper with blobs on it can suddenly be 'recognised' as a
dalmation dog against a background of leaves. This presumably only works if
you are familiar with what a dog/dalmation looks like! :-)

I don't suppose you know where a copy of this test may be found? It is
really impressive.

Afraid not. Even my own brain activity baffles me. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html