Auditory Neuroscience Making Sense of Sound

Every time we listen--to speech, to music, to footsteps approaching or retreating--our auditory perception is the result of a long chain of diverse and intricate processes that unfold within the source of the sound itself, in the air, in our ears, and, most of all, in our brains. Hearing is an "everyday miracle" that, despite its staggering complexity, seems effortless. This book offers an integrated account of hearing in terms of the neural processes that take place in different parts of the auditory system. Because hearing results from the interplay of so many physical, biological, and psychological processes, the book pulls together the different aspects of hearing--including acoustics, the mathematics of signal processing, the physiology of the ear and central auditory pathways, psychoacoustics, speech, and music--into a coherent whole. [After offering essential background material on physical acoustics and physiology, the book explores the neurobiology behind four fundamental facets of hearing--the perception of pitch, the processing of speech, the localization of sound sources, and the perceptual separation of sound mixtures. It also discusses the development and plasticity of the auditory system and how our knowledge of auditory processing has informed such current technologies for treating hearing loss as hearing aids and cochlear implants. Additional resources for readers, students, and instructors, including sound samples, color images, animations, self-test questions, and links, are available on the book's Web site.

Jan Schnupp is Professor of Neuroscience and Codirector of the Auditory Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics at Oxford University and a Fellow of St. Peter's College.

Israel Nelken is Professor in the Department of Neurobiology in the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences and a member of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Andrew King is Professor of Neurophysiology, Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow, and Codirector of the Auditory Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Merton College.