Deck 12: Speech and Music Perception

Question 1

Perception of __________ is the most abstract experience made possible by hearing.

A) speech
B) location
C) emotion
D) tone

Answer 1

speech

Question 2

The complexity of music perception is attested to by

A) the physics of vibrating bodies.
B) hearing the components of chords.
C) different cultures' having different musical systems.
D) all of these

Answer 2

different cultures' having different musical systems.

Question 3

Speech perception depends on

A) auditory stream segmentation.
B) loudness.
C) both auditory stream segmentation and loudness.
D) neither auditory stream segmentation nor loudness.

Answer 3

both auditory stream segmentation and loudness.

Question 4

Human speech is thought to have emerged about

A) 30,000 years ago.
B) 200,000 years ago.
C) 1 million years ago.
D) 2 million years ago.

Question 5

A speaker's auditory face includes

A) semantics
B) mood.
C) pitch.
D) timbre.

Question 6

Speech sounds are

A) fundamentally different from nonspeech sounds.
B) fundamentally the same as nonspeech sounds.
C) processed differently by the inner ear than nonspeech sounds are.
D) processed the same by the brain as nonspeech sounds are.

Question 7

The smallest possible sound that can change the meaning of an utterance is referred to as a

A) neurogram.
B) spectrogram.
C) phoneme.
D) none of these

Question 8

The fundamental unit of speech is the

A) phoneme.
B) morpheme.
C) syllable.
D) larynx.

Question 9

A spectogram is most useful for showing speech's

A) frequency.
B) pitch.
C) amplitude.
D) intonation.

Question 10

Which of the following is a speech sound?

A) an infant's cry
B) an animal's vocalization
C) the characteristic sound of male and female footsteps
D) none of these

Question 11

An example of auditory constancy is

A) hearing the same message despite the words being spoken by males and by females.
B) hearing the same melody despite its being in different keys.
C) hearing a sound as loud despite its being very far away.
D) All these are examples of auditory constancy.

Question 12

Evidence for single cells in the human brain that act as feature detectors for speech comes from

A) brain-imaging studies of the auditory cortex.
B) lesions of Wernicke's area.
C) phonagnosia.
D) monkey brains.

Question 13

The notion that speech perception is more than the auditory system's frequency analysis is supported by the fact that

A) different individuals can all be readily understood.
B) sounds with different sound spectrograms are perceived differently.
C) temporal lobe damage to the dominant brain hemisphere impairs perception much more for speech than
Nonspeech sounds.
D)both different individuals can all be readily understood and temporal lobe damage to the dominant brain
) hemisphere impairs perception much more for speech than nonspeech sounds.

Question 14

The area of the brain specialized for processing speech sounds is

A) the left auditory cortex.
B) the right auditory cortex.
C) the left Wernicke's area.
D) the right Wernicke's area.

Question 15

Imagining speech sounds activates

A) the auditory cortex.
B) Wernicke's area.
C) both the auditory cortex and Wernicke's area.
D) neither the auditory cortex nor Wernicke's area.

Question 16

The area of the brain most involved in processing the semantic content of speech is

A) the left auditory cortex.
B) the right auditory cortex.
C) the left temporal lobe.
D) the right temporal lobe.

Question 17

The area of the brain most involved in processing a speaker's identity is

A) the left auditory cortex.
B) the right auditory cortex.
C) the left temporal lobe.
D) the right temporal lobe.

Question 18

The area of the brain most involved in processing a speaker's identity is

A) the left auditory cortex.
B) the right auditory cortex.
C) the left temporal lobe.
D) the right temporal lobe.

Question 19

A deficit in identifying a speaker is called

A) phonagnosia.
B) Wernicke's aphasia.
C) Broca's aphasia.
D) name aphasia.

Question 20

Which sort of laughter is the most appealing?

A) voiced
B) unvoiced
C) inconspicuous unvoiced
D) females' inconspicuous unvoiced

Question 21

According to the text, activation of the motor cortex by speech sounds is consistent with the theory that

A) speech is perceived by registering the articulations required to produce it.
B) all parts of the brain are interconnected.
C) there are reciprocal connections between perception and action.
D) speech sounds have similar frequency components to those of engines.

Question 22

The "what" pathway in speech perception goes from the auditory cortex

A) anteriorly and ventrally.
B) anteriorly and dorsally.
C) posteriorly and ventrally.
D) posteriorly and dorsally.

Question 23

The "where" pathway in speech perception goes from the auditory cortex

A) anteriorly and ventrally.
B) anteriorly and dorsally.
C) posteriorly and ventrally.
D) posteriorly and dorsally.

Question 24

People can

A) pick out someone from a video (without sound) after they have heard only that person's voice.
B) pick out someone's voice (without vision) after they have seen only a video (without sound) of that person speaking.
C) both pick out someone from a video (without sound) after they have heard only that person's voice and pick out someone's voice (without vision) after they have seen only a video (without sound) of that person speaking.
D)neither pick out someone from a video (without sound) after they have heard only that person's voice nor pick out someone's voice (without vision) after they have seen only a video (without sound) of that person speaking.

Question 25

The notion that there are feature detectors in the auditory nervous system

A) is supported by studies of temporal lobe disease.
B) includes the finding that selective adaptation to a sound makes people less responsive to it.
C) is not supported by the finding that brain damage to speech areas of the brain can selectively impair speech perception.
D both is supported by studies of temporal lobe disease and includes the finding that selective adaptation . to a sound makes people less responsive to it.

Question 26

The perception of speech can be facilitated by its context. This context includes

A) the rate of the speech.
B) the theme of the speech.
C) visual cues.
D) all of these

Question 27

The boundaries between words in mormal speech are

A) intervals about 1/1,000 of a second long.
B) intervals about 1/500 of a second long.
C) provided by the listener's understanding of the words and the context.
D) both intervals about 1/1,000 of a second long and provided by the listener's understanding of the words and the context.

Question 28

Disfluency refers to

A) interruptions in speech, such as "you know," "like," and "uhmmm."
B) stuttering.
C) the errors a person makes when speaking a foreign language.
D) all of these

Question 29

Disfluent speech is

A) harder to comprehend than fluent speech.
B) as easy to comprehend as fluent speech.
C) easier to comprehend than fluent speech.
D) amusing.

Question 30

Melodies appear to be identified by

A) the absolute size of the pitch interval between notes.
B) the relative size of the pitch interval between notes.
C) the overall pitch contour of the melody.
D) all of these

Question 31

Pitch constancy is

A) the ability to recognize a melody played in different keys.
B) the perception of constant pitch of a moving sound that is changing in frequency.
C) the ability to recognize the pitch of a note despite variations in timbre.
D) the ability of a baseball player to throw in the strike zone.

Question 32

Absolute pitch

A) seems to run in families.
B) may be acquired by children after extensive practice.
C) may be inborn in everyone but lost with development.
D) all of these

Question 33

An individual with extraordinarily poor pitch discrimination has

A) amusia.
B) tone deafness.
C) melodic contour.
D) Wernicke's aphasia.

Question 34

Pitch chroma refers to

A) perceiving middle C and C one octave higher as being the same.
B) perceiving middle C as lower in pitch than C one octave higher.
C) perceiving middle C as the same when played on different musical instruments.
D) perceiving middle C as different when played on different musical instruments.

Question 35

Pitch height refers to

A) perceiving middle C and C one octave higher as being the same.
B) perceiving middle C as lower in pitch than C one octave higher.
C) perceiving middle C as the same when played on different musical instruments.
D) perceiving middle C as different when played on different musical instruments.

Question 36

The rhythm of a piece of music refers to

A) tempo.
B) beat.
C) meter.
D) timing.

Question 37

Studies of the perception of rhythm in patients who had undergone unilateral removal of small regions of the temporal lobe (to relieve epilepsy) show that

A) the left and the right hemispheres are equally important.
B) the left hemisphere is more important than the right.
C) the right hemisphere is more important than the left.
D) rhythm is not processed in the temporal lobe.

Question 38

When someone listens to a piece of music from a completely unfamiliar musical tradition

A) the person can appreciate its emotional content.
B) the person cannot appreciate its emotional content.
C) the person can appreciate its emotional content once the piece has been played several times.
D) the person can appreciate its emotional content only after hearing many examples from that musical tradition.

Question 39

One theory for the origin of the emotional content of music is that

A) brisk tempos convey joy; slow tempos convey happiness.
B) loud music conveys anger; quiet music conveys sadness.
C) minor keys convey negative emotions; major keys convey positive emotions.
D) it reflects the characteristics of the human voice.

Question 40

Describe the similarities of, and differences between, speech and music.

Question 41

Discuss neurophysiological and imaging research on humans and on nonhuman primates aimed at finding feature detectors in the human brain.

Question 42

Describe the study by Eimas and Corbit (1973) of human feature detectors. Highlight the logic of the study, how they conducted the study, and the results.

Question 43

Discuss the influences of context on speech perception.

Question 44

What defines a melody? Include in your answer discussions of melody contour, pitch constancy, absolute and relative pitch, and amusia.

Question 45

Why does music convey emotions? Give evidence and theory for your answer.