Deck 9: Hearing and Language

Question 1

The function of a receptor is to ______.

A) convert neural impulses into energy
B) interpret stimuli from the environment
C) screen out irrelevant information from the environment
D) convert energy into a neural impulse

Answer 1

convert energy into a neural impulse

Question 2

A(n) ______ is defined as an energy form that maximally stimulates a particular receptor.

A) specific stimulus
B) adequate stimulus
C) sensory-linked receptor
D) receptive field

Answer 2

adequate stimulus

Question 3

While a(n) ______ stimulus maximally activates a particular receptor, receptors ______ be activated by other means.

A) adequate; can
B) adequate; cannot
C) specific; can
D) specific; cannot

Answer 3

adequate; can

Question 4

The location where transduction for hearing takes place is in the ______.

A) pinna
B) oval window
C) auditory cortex
D) cochlea

Question 5

The full range of human hearing is approximately ______.

A) 0-20 Hz
B) 20-20,000 Hz
C) 1,000-5,000 Hz
D) 40,000-100,000 Hz

Question 6

Humans are most sensitive to frequencies in the range of ______.

A) 4,000-10,000 Hz
B) 2,000-10,000 Hz
C) 2,000-10,000 Hz.
D) 10,000-12,000 Hz

Question 7

Suppose a researcher presents participants with auditory stimuli and wants them to determine whether they are different or the same. The researcher would need to make the stimuli how different from each other in order for participants to detect the difference?

A) 25 Hz
B) 10 Hz
C) 2 Hz
D) 0.1 Hz

Question 8

An adequate stimulus for hearing is ______.

A) Hz
B) a vibration in a conducting medium
C) an auditory stimulus
D) sound

Question 9

When you are at the pool with your head above water, the conducting medium for vibration is ______, and when your head is below water, the conducting medium is ______.

A) sound; sound
B) air; air
C) air; water
D) air; nothing - you cannot hear under water.

Question 10

The amplitude of a sound wave corresponds to what psychological property of sound?

A) loudness
B) pitch
C) complexity
D) frequency

Question 11

When you hear a police siren, the sound seems to rise and fall. What is most likely responsible for this perceptual experience?

A) changes in amplitude
B) changes in location
C) changes in frequency
D) changes in time of arrival

Question 12

How loud a sound ultimately sounds is a function of ______.

A) amplitude only
B) amplitude and complexity
C) amplitude and frequency
D) frequency and complexity

Question 13

A rich musical instrument such as a clarinet would have what frequency components?

A) low frequencies (below 1,000 Hz)
B) middle frequencies (between 1,000 and 4,000 Hz)
C) high frequencies (above 4,000 Hz)
D) a complex mix of all of these

Question 14

Musical pleasantness is a function of ______.

A) the complexity of the frequencies
B) experience and culture
C) the amount of musical receptors one has
D) whether or not one has played an instrument

Question 15

The ______ adjusts the tension of the eardrum as a function of environmental noise, and is responsible for the rumble you hear when you yawn.

A) oval window
B) tensor tympani
C) tympanic membrane
D) round window

Question 16

An important function of the Eustachian tube is to ______.

A) equalize the pressure in the middle ear
B) equalize the pressure in the inner ear
C) clear excess fluid from the middle ear
D) clear excess fluid from the inner ear

Question 17

Which of the following is a correct statement about hair cells?

A) The outer hair cells are responsible for increasing cochlear sensitivity and sharpening frequency tuning.
B) The inner hair cells are responsible for encoding the sound vibrations into electrical signals.
C) The level of hair cell stimulation is proportional to the degree that the hair cells are bent
D) all of these

Question 18

Which of the following would you expect researchers to find, based on your knowledge of the auditory system?

A) Cochlear neurons most commonly form synapses with vestibular cells.
B) Mutant mice that lack inner hair cells are unable to hear.
C) Humans will excessive hair cells cannot distinguish sound waves based on frequency.
D) Mutant mice without pinna are unable to maintain their balance.

Question 19

Located on the ______, ______ are responsible for collecting most of the information associated with an auditory stimulus.

A) organ of Corti; inner hair cells
B) tectorial membrane; inner hair cells
C) organ of Corti; outer hair cells
D) cochlea; outer hair cells

Question 20

Which of the following sequences best describes the pathway of auditory signals through the brain?

A) cochlea, auditory nerve, brainstem nuclei, inferior colliculi, lateral geniculate nucleus, auditory cortex
B) cochlea, auditory nerve, brainstem nuclei, inferior colliculi, medial geniculate nucleus, auditory cortex
C) cochlea, auditory nerve, inferior colliculi, medial geniculate nucleus, auditory cortex
D) cochlea, auditory nerve, brainstem nuclei, superior colliculi, medial geniculate nucleus, auditory cortex

Question 21

The dorsal auditory stream enables you to ______, while the ventral stream is active in ______.

A) find sounds using timing differences; locating sounds using intensity differences
B) know where a sound is; knowing what a sound is
C) do complexity analysis; tonotopic analysis
D) do pitch analysis; amplitude analysis

Question 22

When Janice is pointing out where a rattle is coming from in her car's engine compartment, despite her not knowing what it means, her sound discrimination is a function of her ______.

A) ventral stream of auditory analysis
B) dorsal stream of auditory analysis
C) secondary auditory cortex
D) inferior colliculus and medial geniculate nucleus

Question 23

Officer Rosa hit the deck, knowing that the sudden sound was a gunshot and not a car backfiring, because of her ______.

A) ventral stream of auditory analysis
B) dorsal stream of auditory analysis
C) secondary auditory cortex
D) inferior colliculus and medial geniculate nucleus

Question 24

The ability to follow an individual conversation due to the "cocktail party effect" involves ______ of the competing conversations, presumably due to the action of the ______.

A) distortion; ossicles
B) potentiation; inner hair cells
C) suppression; outer hair cells
D) none of these

Question 25

Frequency (or telephone) theory proposed that ______.

A) individual neurons in the auditory nerve fired at the same frequency as the rate of the sound source
B) individual neurons in the auditory nerve fired at the same intensity as the intensity of the sound source
C) individual neurons in the auditory nerve fired at the same rate that was proportional to the intensity of the sound source
D) individual neurons in the dorsal path fired at the same frequency as the rate of the neurons in the ventral pathway

Question 26

Because neurons can only fire so many times per second, only ______ could be processed as hypothesized by ______ theory.

A) high-end frequencies; place
B) low-end frequencies; frequency
C) high pitches; telephone
D) low pitches; place

Question 27

In the most accepted theory for pitch perception, for the low-end frequencies (up to about ______), ______ is used. For frequencies above this cutoff, ______ is the preferred theory.

A) 500 Hz; volley; place
B) 250 Hz; frequency; volley
C) 200 Hz; frequency; place
D) 100 Hz; place; frequency

Question 28

For frequencies of sound to which place theory applies, neurons inform the brain of these frequencies by ______.

A) altering states of neural firing via fewer IPSPs occurring in inner hair cells
B) changing patterns of neural firing via lowered threshold of firing in inner hair cells
C) the region of the basilar membrane with maximal vibration and subsequently which neurons are firing most
D) changing the number of fibers activated and the pattern of volleying across different fibers

Question 29

When we record the ______ of an auditory neuron, we note that each neuron has a single primary frequency of maximal responsiveness.

A) sensitivity map
B) Doppler shift
C) tuning curve
D) time of arrival difference

Question 30

For which of the following individuals will a cochlear implant show the most success?

A) Nico, who was born deaf
B) Estelle, who learned sign language prior to developing hearing loss
C) Marvin, who suffers from hearing loss due to damage to his auditory cortex
D) Kristina, who became deaf at age 16 after a period of completely normal hearing and language use

Question 31

Attending to a conversation inside a busy room requires you to attend to a particular ______.

A) wavelength
B) hair cell
C) pure tone
D) auditory object

Question 32

You are standing and a friend directly to your left yells loudly. Which of the following would occur?

A) The sound would be more intense in your right compared to left ear.
B) The sound would reach your left ear roughly 0.5 milliseconds before your right ear.
C) The sound would reach both ears at roughly the same time, since it is loud.
D) The sound would be equally intense in both ears because it is loud.

Question 33

If you were not listening closely, the speech of a patient with Wernicke's aphasia would sound ______.

A) slow and labored
B) normal
C) incomprehensible
D) too loud

Question 34

Frank had a mini-stroke while driving home, but he did not realize it until later that afternoon when he found that he couldn't write his shopping list. What part of his brain was most likely affected?

A) angular gyrus
B) planum temporale
C) Broca's area
D) Wernicke's area

Question 35

Which of the following is true with respect to cultural differences in dyslexia?

A) Areas that are impaired are similar regardless of the language or culture.
B) Complex languages show greater impairment than less complex ones.
C) Some of the physiological origins of dyslexia occur before birth.
D) all of these

Question 36

When children recover from brain damage to language areas and the resultant aphasia, recovery is most likely the result of ______.

A) areas in the opposite hemisphere assuming the role of the damaged areas
B) other areas in the same hemisphere assuming the role of the damaged areas
C) growth of both hemispheres' language areas
D) neuronal growth and pruning in the same hemisphere's language areas

Question 37

Prosody is linked to the ______.

A) right hemisphere
B) left hemisphere
C) occipital cortex
D) parietal cortex

Question 38

If deaf children are raised without exposure to sign language, they sometimes ______, and this has been taken as evidence for a ______.

A) develop individually idiosyncratic signing; theory of language being genetic
B) develop American Sign Language spontaneously; genetic sign language
C) develop their own sign language; language acquisition device
D) are unable to learn any sign language; critical period in language acquisition

Question 39

Chomsky and Pinker have inferred the existence of a language acquisition device, which is hypothesized to be ______.

A) a part of the brain dedicated to learning and controlling language
B) a method for language learning that is acquired through experience
C) an electronic signal through all four brain lobes necessary for underlying language learning
D) present only in children and absent in adults

Question 40

Mary learned Spanish as a child and English when she emigrated to the United States as a teenager. What would you expect brain scans to show?

A) Mary would have more activation when speaking English compared to Spanish.
B) Mary would have less activation when speaking English compared to Spanish.
C) Mary would show different brain areas active when speaking English compared to Spanish.
D) Mary would show activity in the same brain areas when speaking English compared to Spanish.

Question 41

One of the key associations that might have helped our ancestors develop language is that the brain areas involving language and ______ overlap.

A) creativity
B) curiosity
C) imitation
D) motor control

Question 42

One problem your auditory system has to solve is converting sound from an air to a water medium.

Question 43

A person can be impaired when attempting to read or write but have normal speech.

Question 44

Broca's area is involved in the production of speech.

Question 45

A problem with your angular gyrus will prevent you from being able to understand the speech of others.

Question 46

Imitation and language areas overlap in humans.

Question 47

Humans cannot use sound to echolocate.

Question 48

Explain the difference between the perceptual properties of pitch and loudness and how they are related to the auditory stimulus.

Question 49

Explain the perspective of frequency and place theory as they apply to differentiating pitch.

Question 50

Explain the different binaural cues for locating sounds and potential limitations associated with each.

Question 51

Explain the difference between mechanical and neural deafness and how they can be treated.

Question 52

Explain the differences between Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia and how they support localization of function in language processing.

Question 53

Describe the symptoms associated with dyslexia. Address whether the letters appear to be flip-flopped on the page as many people believe.

Question 54

Explain what is known about language acquisition for deaf and hearing infants born to deaf or hearing parents and how this offers support for a language acquisition device.

Question 55

Explain the differences between multiple language learning at the same time (e.g., in childhood) compared to learning a second language later in life.

Question 56

Explain why exploring the use and ability to learn language in nonhuman animals can help us understand language in humans.