| audibility function (AF) | In hearing, a graph portraying threshold intensity as a function of the frequency of the test tone.
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| auditory image | With a complex sound field arising from several different auditory events, the information associated with just one of those events.
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| bandpass noise | Noise containing a restricted, contiguous band of frequencies.
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| binaural unmasking | A reduction in the ability of masking noise heard with both ears to mask another sound heard by one ear only. See masking.
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| bone conduction | The transmission of sound wave vibrations through the bones of the skull to the cochlea. A procedure for testing the integrity of the cochlea in the presence of middle-ear damage.
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| broadband noise | Noise whose energy covers a wide range of frequencies.
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| center frequency | The frequency lying at the center of the range of frequencies contained in bandpass noise.
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| cocktail party effect | The ability to attend selectively to the speech of one person in the midst of many other speakers.
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| conduction loss | A form of hearing loss attributable to a disorder in the outer or middle ear; it typically involves an overall loss in sensitivity at all sound frequencies. See sensory/neural loss.
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| cone of confusion | The set of points in space that potentially could have given rise to any one interaural time difference or interaural intensity difference.
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| critical band | The restricted range of frequencies that mask a given test frequency. The critical band reflects the frequency tuning of the neurons that detect the test frequency.
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| discrimination threshold | The minimum physical difference, usually an intensity difference, that allows two objects to be distinguished from each other.
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| duplex theory | In hearing, the idea that the interaural time difference (ITD) is used to localize low-frequency sounds and the interaural intensity difference (IID) is used to localize high-frequency sounds.
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| equal loudness contours | A set of curves describing the sound intensities at which different frequencies all sound equal in loudness. See loudness matching.
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| fundamental frequency | The lowest frequency among the set of frequencies associated with a complex sound.
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| harmonics | Acoustic frequencies that are multiples of one another, often occurring in speech and music. Harmonic tones tend to be perceptually grouped in hearing.
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| interaural intensity difference (IID) | The difference in the intensity of sound arriving at the two ears; one of the sources of information for sound localization. See interaural time difference.
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| interaural time difference (ITD) | The difference in the time of arrival of a sound wave at the two ears; one of the sources of information for sound localization. See interaural intensity difference.
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| loudness | The subjective experience associated with sound intensity.
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| loudness matching | A psychophysical procedure in which a listener adjusts the intensity of one tone until it sounds as loud as another tone. See equal loudness contours.
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| magnitude estimation | A psychophysical procedure in which people assign numbers to stimuli in proportion to the perceived intensity of those stimuli.
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| masking | A reduction in one stimulus’s visibility or loudness as a result of the juxtaposition of another, stronger stimulus. See binaural unmasking.
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| melody contour | The rise and fall of successive notes in a musical passage.
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| missing fundamental | With a complex series of harmonic tones, the fundamental tone of the series may continue to be heard despite the fact that it has been physically removed.
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| neurogram | A graph depicting variations over time in the neural activity within a large number of frequency-selective neurons in response to a complex sound.
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| otosclerosis | A disorder of the middle ear involving immobilization of the stirrup.
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| perfect pitch | The comparatively rare ability to identify any musical note played or to reproduce vocally any named note. See relative pitch.
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| phoneme | A sound difference that affects the meaning of an utterance; widely regarded as the fundamental unit of speech.
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| phonagnosia | Inability to identify speakers by means of their voices.
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| pitch | The subjective counterpart to sound frequency.
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| presbycusis | In hearing, an age-related gradual loss of sensitivity to high-frequency tones.
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| profile analysis | The process by which the relative activity of various neurons registers some property of a stimulus.
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| relative pitch | The comparatively common ability to identify a tonal interval without necessarily knowing the particular tones that make up that interval. See perfect pitch.
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| sensory/neural loss | A form of hearing loss originating within the inner ear or the auditory pathways; may involve selective loss of sensitivity to a limited range of frequencies. See conduction loss.
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| sound localization | Ability to identify the position of some sound stimulus.
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| spectrogram | A graph depicting the frequency composition of a sound as a function of time.
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| temporary threshold shift | A short-lived decrease in hearing sensitivity caused by exposure to noise.
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| threshold intensity | The minimum sound intensity necessary to elicit a neural response from an auditory neuron.
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| timbre | The quality of sound that distinguishes different musical instruments. See harmonics.
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| tinnitus | An annoying, persistent ringing in the ears.
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education