Re: High-frequency hearing in humans (John Culling )


Subject: Re: High-frequency hearing in humans
From:    John Culling  <cullingj@xxxxxxxx>
Date:    Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:34:38 +0000
List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>

My understanding is that high-frequency hearing is basically a mammal thing. Even the vaunted auditory system of the barn owl is limited to 10 kHz. The reason mammals developed high frequency hearing is probably that they were small and nocturnal and needed to hear where things were in the dark with their small heads. Humans, of course only go one octave into this exclusively mammalian sensory domain - we're big and don't go out nights so often these days, so it's a bit vestigial. Having emphasised the localisation angle, I wouldn't want to suggest that communication is unimportant. I once heard a demo of a rat being tickled and the sound, transformed by a bat detector, was unmistakably giggling - they vocalise at very high frequencies. John. On 25 Jan 2011 at 10:27, Piotr Majdak wrote: > Dear list, > > I'm looking for the reasons for the good high-frequency* hearing in humans. > > The reasons I have until now are actually the obvious ones: > * Pinna localization cues > * Interaural level cues (ILD, they actually start to work from around 2 kHz) > > What do you think: if there were no need for the ILD and pinna cues, > would there be any other reasons? > > Thanks, > > Piotr > *) say, above 8 kHz > > -- > Piotr Majdak > Psychoacoustics and Experimental Audiology > Acoustics Research Institute <http://www.kfs.oeaw.ac.at> > Austrian Academy of Sciences <http://www.oeaw.ac.at/> > Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1040 Vienna, Austria > Tel.: +43 1 51581-2511 > Fax: +43 1 51581-2530 Bob Masta D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis www.daqarta.com Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Signal Generator Science with your sound card!


This message came from the mail archive
/home/empire6/dpwe/public_html/postings/2011/
maintained by:
DAn Ellis <dpwe@ee.columbia.edu>
Electrical Engineering Dept., Columbia University