Psychophysiology of speech hearing.

Abstract

THE FORMATION of meaningful patterns from vibrations falling on the ear depends on two anatomic components: the peripheral organ of hearing and the cortical association and memory centers. Ordinarily, the cerebrum is capable of filling in gaps in the picture presented by the peripheral organ. The brain is able to complete a word picture when only a part of the word is heard, and a sentence is constructed by the cerebral cortex from a few words and auditory cues. In Arnold's experiment 1 the listener has no trouble in understanding every word when speech is transmitted through a filter system delivering frequency components below 1000 cycles to the right ear, while all components with frequencies above 1000 double vibrations are being sent into another channel and delivered to the left ear at the same time. Thus, the brain is capable of creating meaningful patterns from fragmentary sound sensations gathered from