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Hearing

Hearing is a familiar and important human sense that is a topic naturally of interest to those who are curious about human biology. This free course will enable you to relate what you read to your own sensory experiences and indeed many of the questions asked have exactly that function. This course will be best understood by those with some biological understanding.
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
- distinguish between the major anatomical components of the outer, middle and inner ear
- describe the function of the outer, middle and inner ear
- describe the structure of the cochlea
- describe the structural arrangements of the organ of Corti and the function of the basilar membrane
- decribe the main causes of hearing impairments and the methods used to rehabilitate hearing-impaired individuals.
First Published: 09/08/2012
Updated: 17/12/2018
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Course content
- Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Sound reception: the ear
- 2 Structure and function
- 3 The structure and function of the inner ear
- 4 Neural processing of auditory information
- 5 Frequency coding in cochlear nerve fibres
- 6 Intensity coding
- 7 The central auditory nervous system
- 8 Auditory perception
- 9 Psychophysics
- 10 The perception of intensity
- 11 The perception of frequency
- 12 Sound localisation
- 12.1 Localisation of sound in the horizontal plane
- 12.2 Interaural time delays: non-continuous sounds
- 12.3 Interaural time delays: continuous tones
- 12.4 Interaural intensity differences
- 12.5 Localisation of sound in the vertical plane
- 12.6 Distance cues
- 12.7 Summary of Section 12
- 12.8 More revision questions
- Acknowledgements
Your course resources
As you work through this course you will need various resources to help you complete some of the activities.
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About this free course
15 hours study
Level 3: Advanced
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