Auditory Worlds: Sensory Analysis and Perception in Animals and Man: Final Report

What auditory worlds exist? This question implies that the auditory experience of various animals is not the same. The recognition that the sense organs of animals may be quite different to those of man is crucial to understanding animal behavior and to the establishment of the science of sensory physiology. "Auditory Worlds" provides in a succinct form a report of fifteen years of research activity on the hearing system of vertebrates. Scientists from a broad range of backgrounds contributed to this collaborative research effort. They used almost every available approach to studying the ear and the "hearing brain". There were engineers with interests in measuring and defining sound and the human perception of it, and human perception of speech and music. Others trained in zoology concentrated their efforts in understanding the structure and function of hearing organs of different vertebrate groups (reptiles, birds and mammals). Some groups worked towards understanding how the brain processes auditory information that is important during sound production and vocalization in animals or the acoustic signals relevant to behavior. A comparison to perception in hearing-impaired humans was established. Concerted effort made it possible to understand the relationship between physiology on the one hand and psychoacoustics on the other in both animal and man. New methodologies, such as the measurement of otoacoustic emissions, became established during the tenure of this project and had significant influence on the kind of work carried out in later years. This book is not a sequence of individual projects' reports. The chapters do not correspond to projects, but have been jointly written by several researchers in each case. There was a strong desire to produce data of interest to the widest possible audience.