The ear decomposes complex sounds into summed place responses

Evidence

This is illustrated in Figure 2.5 for a section of the length of the membrane. This is the basis of the “place” analysis of sound by the hearing system. The extent, or “envelope,” of basilar membrane movement is plotted against frequency in an idealized manner for five input pure tones of different frequencies. If the input sound were a complex tone consisting of many components, the overall basilar membrane response is effectively the sum of the responses for each individual component. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 553

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘place analysis’ and the linear summing of component responses that underlies auditory signal processing.

Related

• The ear analyzes complex sounds by superposition of individual frequency responses (similarity 0.94)
• The hearing system analyzes complex sounds by linear superposition of component responses (similarity 0.92)
• Frequency-domain analysis mirrors how the human ear processes sound (similarity 0.85)
• Listening analyzes periodic sound into integer-multiple sine components (similarity 0.83)
• The ear’s analysis resembles Fourier frequency decomposition of sound (similarity 0.82)
• The ear functions as a bank of frequency-selective filters tuned to basilar membrane places (similarity 0.82)
• Hearing is a staged chain from air capture through mechanical conduction to neural processing (similarity 0.80)
• The ear analyzes frequencies by location along the basilar membrane. (similarity 0.80)
• The auditory system acts as a band-pass filter at each signal frequency. (similarity 0.80)
• Auditory filters are analyzed one component at a time to build up complex effects (similarity 0.80)
• Time–frequency audio processing exploits the ear’s own spectral analysis structure (similarity 0.80)
• The basilar membrane’s tapering shape enables it to sort sounds by frequency. (similarity 0.80)
• Sound becomes mechanical movement via the eardrum and ossicle chain (similarity 0.80)
• The auditory cortex decodes speech from acoustically jumbled waveforms. (similarity 0.80)
• Broad-spectrum sounds read as louder because auditory bands integrate across the basilar membrane (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Auditory filters are analyzed one component at a time to build up complex effects #expands (0.85) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1593