Basilar Membrane Motion
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
The energy of all the sounds we listen to is converted into neural impulses within the cochlea. If we are to understand how the brain identifies sounds and localizes them in space, we first need to know how the cochlea codes sound stimuli in patterns of neural impulses.
Sensory neurophysiology involves recording the responses of a single neuron, or a cluster of neurons, to external stimuli. Sound is a convenient stimulus to use because it can be represented as a function of one variable: the pressure as a function of time. In addition, a stimulus may be analyzed in terms of different frequency components, each component having a particular amplitude and phase (Helmholtz 1954). The relative amplitudes and phases of the different components give a sound its particular auditory characteristics, and a comparison of amplitude and phase between the two ears provides the basis for localizing the source of the...
