• understanding the transduced sound is the next step
    • after the inner ear sends neural signals
    • having converted sound waves that entered the ear

primary auditory cortex

  • consider number of cells dedicated to
    • transduction
    • interpretation
  • there isn’t much elements held in sound waves
    • a lot of the audio interpretation happens from the non-auditory elements
    • to process the sound waves received
  • as a result, the expectation of hearing something influences what is heard
    • context plays a major role in processing sound waves

  • the bulk of the auditory processing happens in the auditory cortex

  • if something that is said isn’t understood properly,
    • then the sound strip is played back over and over for sometime
    • something akin to a buffer
  • that is the processing done in primary auditory cortex

semantics and prosody

  • expectation is a huge piece of understanding verbal language
    • prosody is an other

Wernicke's Area

semantics

  • Wernicke’s Area and Broca’s Area are responsible for
    • understanding what words actually mean
    • identifying the context and the interpretation

prosody

  • is the tone and intonation of speech, with the words removed

  • ties into frequencies of change in rhythm and change in loudness

  • there is a mirror system on the right hemisphere
    • responsible for understanding the meaning and prosody
    • prosody is the non-linguistic, rhythmic content of speech

difficulties in understanding and deception

  • the same words can be used in different prosodies to mean different things

  • different words can be used with the same prosody to imply different things

  • damage in left hemisphere to Broca’s and Wernicke’s area damage causes linguistic aphaisa
  • damage to right hemisphere results in degradation of interpretation of prosody and rhythmic elements
    • even if something is heard, it is never processed or processed poorly

communication

  • interaction between semantic and prosodic production and interpretation
  • right hemisphere: which time frame is emphasized in the auditory communication
  • left hemisphere: the semantic interpretation
  • it is a dance between the two hemisphere for the final interpretation
    • there is also interplay between the body language
  • the dance between the right and left hemispheres for semantic and prosodic communication is for both
    • to understand others
    • to be understood by others
  • if a tree fell in the forest, would it not make a sound?
    • according to one, it does not make a sound
    • but, it would make a pressure wave
    • so sound is something that is perceived in the brain
      • in response to pressure waves
    • this also means that things that aren’t there are heard