The Sense of Hearing is a truly accessible introduction to auditory perception that is intended for students approaching the subject for the first time, and as a foundation for more advanced study. The second edition has been thoroughly revised throughout, and included new chapters on music, hearing impairment, and a new appendix describing research methodologies. In clear and authoritative prose, the fundamental aspects of hearing are addressed. The reader is introduced to the nature of sound and the spectrum, and the anatomy and physiology of the auditory system. Basic auditory processes including frequency selectivity, loudness and pitch perception, temporal resolution, and sound localization are explained. The reader is led to an understanding of the remarkable abilities of the auditory system in a systematic and coherent way. In subsequent chapters, it is shown how complex processes, such as perceptual organization, speech perception, and music perception, are dependent on the initial analysis that occurs when sounds enter the ear. Finally, a chapter on hearing impairment provides an introduction to disorders of the auditory system. The text benefits from 162 original illustrations, including uncluttered diagrams that illuminate auditory mechanisms. An extensive glossary provides definitions of technical terms. The emphasis is on explanation and clarity of style throughout, making The Sense of Hearing an essential resource for students and educators involved in this sometimes challenging field.

"Introduce emergent readers to the sense of hearing through carefully leveled text and a tight text-to-photo match."--Provided by publisher.

Reveals how the human sense of hearing manipulates how people think, consume, sleep and feel, explaining the hearing science behind such phenomena as why people fall asleep while traveling, the reason fingernails on a chalkboard causes cringing and why songs get stuck in one's head.

Did you know that you don't remember all the sounds you hear in a day? Your brain lets you know what sounds are important to pay attention to. Students will discover how their ears allow them to hear loud noises, whispers, music, and many other sounds.

An integrated overview of hearing and the interplay of physical, biological, and psychological processes underlying it. 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.

Millions of Americans experience some degree of hearing loss. The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates programs that provide cash disability benefits to people with permanent impairments like hearing loss, if they can show that their impairments meet stringent SSA criteria and their earnings are below an SSA threshold. The National Research Council convened an expert committee at the request of the SSA to study the issues related to disability determination for people with hearing loss. This volume is the product of that study. Hearing Loss: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits reviews current knowledge about hearing loss and its measurement and treatment, and provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes and criteria. It recommends changes to strengthen the disability determination process and ensure its reliability and fairness. The book addresses criteria for selection of pure tone and speech tests, guidelines for test administration, testing of hearing in noise, special issues related to testing children, and the difficulty of predicting work capacity from clinical hearing test results. It should be useful to audiologists, otolaryngologists, disability advocates, and others who are concerned with people who have hearing loss.

Discusses the sense of hearing, and how the ear works to interpret sound, includes simple experiments to investigate hearing.