Auditory Perception: A New Analysis and Synthesis Book

This new edition of Auditory Perception: A New Synthesis, 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. The book guides the reader through the physics of sound and the anatomy and physiology of the inner ear and nervous system, then explains 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 volume's new material includes discoveries concerning cochlear mechanics and neural transduction, processes involved in the perceptual restoration of portions of signals obliterated by extraneous sounds. 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. The book comes with a CD-ROM that contains audio demonstrations, allowing the reader to experience directly some of the auditory illusions that have been described, providing new insights into the mechanisms employed in perceptual organization.