Auditory Perception

This new edition of Auditory Perception: A New Synthesis, a book originally published by Pergamon Press (1982), describes the nature of sound, how it is analyzed by the auditory system, and the rules and principles governing our interpretation of auditory input. It guides the reader through the physics of sound and the anatomy and physiology of the inner ear and nervous system before embarking on an explanation of how experiments reveal the means by which we locate and identify sound sources and events, and how we recognize and interpret the patterns of music and speech. The new material includes discoveries concerning cochlear mechanics and neural transduction, processes involved in the perceptual restoration of portions of signals obliterated by extraneous sounds, and the manner in which sequences of sounds including those of speech and music, are organized into recognizable patterns. In addition, a chapter on speech describes how processes employed for the perception of brief nonverbal sounds are used for the organization of syllables and words, along with an overlay of special linguistic mechanisms. The book comes with an accompanying CD-ROM containing audio demonstrations, allowing the reader to experience directly some of the auditory illusions that have been described, and providing new insight into the mechanisms employed in perceptual organization. Advance undergraduate and graduate students interested in auditory perception in behavioral sciences, psychology, neurobiology, and speech and hearing sciences, will find this book an excellent advanced guide to the subject.

Richard M. Warren is currently Adjunct Distinguished Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.