COURSE OUTLINE
CS D9512 Acoustics, Perception, and the Auditory System
Western University, Fall Semester, 2015
Instructors
Instructors:
1st half: Dr. David Purcell
Office: Elborn College 2262D (inside the National Centre for Audiology)
Phone: 519 661-2111 x80435; email: purcelld@nca.uwo.ca
2nd half: Dr. Ingrid Johnsrude
Office: Elborn College 2596
Phone: 519 661-2111 x84447; email: ingrid.johnsrude@uwo.ca
Office hours
hours: Meetings welcome by appointment.
TA:
Rebekah Allison; email: ralliso@uwo.ca, Hearing Science MSc student.
Text:
The Sense of Hearing: Second Edition, Christopher J. Plack, Psychology Press.
ISBN: 9781848729872. Available at campus bookstore, but price is
significantly better on Amazon.ca. Supplemental readings will also be provided
via course OWL website.
Lectures:
Wednesdays 9:30am-11am, Fridays 1-2:30pm, Elborn College Room 2508.
Labs:
8:30-11:30am Friday, divided into one or two sections. Usually in the Elborn
College computer lab, Room 1555. Labs are not held every week; this time
slot is shared with CSD9513, Electronics and Acoustics.
Overview and Purpose of Course
This course provides an introductory background, for students studying Audiology, to
understanding sound, its propagation, the acoustics of rooms, and how the human auditory
system processes sound. Signal filtering and representations in time and frequency domains
will be introduced. Anatomy of the ear and auditory nervous system will be covered from the
periphery to central structures, as well as the function of these systems in the processing of
sound. Perception of pitch, loudness, timbre, sound location, and complex auditory scenes
will be covered, and psychoacoustics in adults will also be studied.
What to expect
Attendance & Readings: Since this course lays the groundwork for studies in hearing, its scope
is necessarily very large, and some of the concepts will not be familiar to you. The topic
requires an unusual mix of physics, physiology, psychology, and engineering. Lectures and the
text/supplemental readings are complementary, but are not the same. You should both attend
lectures and read the text/supplemental readings. Examinations will be based on the topics
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covered in lectures and labs and the corresponding sections of the text/supplemental readings.
You are expected to come prepared and to participate actively in the class and labs.
Teaching Style: We tend to ask a lot of questions in class, and, since we do not have a huge
group, we encourage you to do the same. We ask questions to facilitate the putting-together of
concepts and information, to emphasize and reiterate important points, and to gauge whether
explanations have been effective. We do not do it to put people “on the spot”, so do not be
afraid to give an “unexpected” answer – it may help the group to learn. If you dread afterquestion silences, speak up!
Evaluation
Exams: There will be a midterm and a comprehensive final exam,
exam both potentially
consisting of drawing and/or labeling of diagrams/graphs, short answer questions that relate to
diagrams/graphs or questions, short calculations, multiple choice questions, true/false
questions, and fill-in-the-blank questions.
The midterm contributes 25% and the final exam contributes 35% toward your overall course
grade.
Labs: Participation in labs is essential. Concepts covered in the lectures will be reviewed and
practical examples worked through. These examples will be relevant to the assignments and to
the examinations. At the labs, your TA will also help you learn to use the necessary computer
software. Participation in labs is worth 5% of your final grade.
Assignments: There will be seven assignments and each contributes 5% to your final grade
(35% total). You may work collaboratively to learn the concepts, but the work you turn in
must be your own.
Assignments are due at the start of class on the dates given in the schedule below. Late
assignments will be accepted; however you will lose ½ point (i.e. 10% of the total mark) per
day without a valid excuse (e.g. doctor’s note).
Software and headphones:
Assignments and labs will involve hands-on computation and listening experiments using the
following pieces of software. These are available in the Elborn computer lab (Room 1555),
and can also be installed on your own computer if you wish. Some labs and assignments will
involve listening experiments requiring headphones. Please bring your favourite headphones.
•
Spreadsheet: Computation, data analysis, and plotting will be performed in a
spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Open Office (which can be downloaded
from http://www.openoffice.org).
•
Sound analysis: The free sound analysis program called Praat will be used. Praat (for
Windows, Mac, or Linux) can be downloaded online at:
http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/
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Praat can produce plots that can be easily copied and pasted into Microsoft Word or
Excel documents. This program will also likely be used in CSD 9514 (Speech Science
for Audiology).
•
Signal processing: A program called MATLAB will be used. This program is not free
for download, but is available for Western students to use in the Elborn computer
room.
Questions?
Be proactive! Ask during class. Ask on OWL. Collaborate with your classmates. Ask your TA.
See us after class. Make an appointment to see one of us. We want to help!
Other Notes:
Students with Special Needs: Students with special needs are invited to talk to us
confidentially so that informal accommodations (e.g. seating) can be made. Requests for
formal academic accommodations must be made through Services for Students with
Disabilities (http://www.sdc.uwo.ca/ssd/).
Some lab and classroom activities involve listening experiments, so students with hearing
impairment are particularly invited to discuss strategies to facilitate full participation.
Electronic devices: Notebook and tablet computer use in class for note-taking and class-related
activities will be permitted unless it becomes distracting to other students or to the instructor.
Cell/smart-phone use and texting are not permitted. Non-programmable calculators are
permitted in exams.
Changes to the Timetable: There will almost certainly be variations to the topic schedule
provided below.
OWL:
• The class OWL page will be used to make assignments and lecture materials available.
• Some assignments and labs may also require you to upload data to OWL for group
analysis.
• A discussion forum will be available for questions, discussions, and news items that
might be of general interest to the class.
Online assistance: We prefer to answer questions in person because we find it is less error
prone to refer to figures and draw things out. If you need to ask a straightforward question by
email, we will respond during regular business hours. If you find yourself writing a long
complicated email… just ask to meet one of us because that is what we will ask of you! If we
think that your question may be relevant for others in the class, we will ask your permission to
post an anonymized version and its response on OWL after our discussion. If you do e-mail,
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please use your Western email and use an informative subject line that includes the course
number (CSD9512).
Health and Wellness
As part of a successful graduate student experience at Western, we encourage students to make
their health and wellness a priority. Western provides several health-related services on campus
to help you achieve optimum health and engage in healthy living while pursuing your
graduate degree. For example, to support physical activity, all students, as part of their
registration, receive membership in Western's Campus Recreation Centre. Numerous cultural
events are offered throughout the year. Please check out the Faculty of Music web page
http://www.music.uwo.ca/ , and our own McIntosh Gallery http://www.mcintoshgallery.ca/ .
Information regarding health- and wellness-related services available to students may be found
at http://www.health.uwo.ca/ .
Students seeking help regarding mental health concerns are advised to speak to someone they
feel comfortable confiding in, such as their faculty supervisor, their program director (graduate
chair), or other relevant administrators in their unit. Campus mental health resources may be
found at http://www.health.uwo.ca/mental_health/resources.html.
To help you learn more about mental health, Western has developed an interactive mental
health learning module, found here: http://www.health.uwo.ca/mental_health/module.html .
This module is 30 minutes in length and provides participants with a basic understanding of
mental health issues and of available campus and community resources. Topics include stress,
anxiety, depression, suicide and eating disorders. After successful completion of the module,
participants receive a certificate confirming their participation.
Academic Offenses
Students must do their own work. You are encouraged to learn together, but each individual
must understand the material and work through problems themselves. If written answers use
ideas or short passages from other authors, they must be properly referenced. Plagiarism from
fellow students or other sources is cheating, and is a major offense.
Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are directed to read the appropriate policy,
specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site:
http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_grad.pdf
All required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the
commercial plagiarism-detection software under license to the University for the detection of
plagiarism. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in
the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently
submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently
between The University of Western Ontario and Turnitin.com (http://www.turnitin.com).
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CLASS SCHEDULE
Some variation will certainly occur to topic schedule; date of midterm is firm.
Week
1
2
3
4
5
Lectures
(or Special
Day)
Friday Sept
11
Sept 16, 18
Sept 23, 25
Sept 30, Oct
2
Oct 7, 9
Oct 12
6
Oct 14, 16
7
Oct 21, 23
8
Oct 28
8
Friday Oct
30
8
Oct 30
Topic
Readings
Lab
(in EC 1555 except #5)
Rosen Howell
Ch 2, 3
Plack Ch 2
Plack Ch 3
Sept 18, #1: simulation
and dB
Assignment
Due
Introductions
Sinusoids & sound
Sound & rooms
Sound & stimuli
Stimuli & analysis
Filters & systems
Turkey or
Equivalent
(Thanksgiving
Holiday)
Outer & middle ears
Inner ear anatomy
and mechanics
Transduction and
peripheral auditory
neuroanatomy
The ascending
auditory system and
cortex
Midterm
Examination
during Lab Time
Psychoacoustics,
Signal Detection
Theory (SDT)
#1 Sept 25
Oct 2, #2: sound and
analysis
Dave Heeger
#2 Oct 9
Linear Systems
Theory Handout
Møller Ch 1
Plack Ch 4.14.5
Plack Ch 5.25.3
Oct 16, #3: Filters &
linear systems
#3 Oct 23
Yost Ch 15
On material up
to class on Oct
28.
Macmillan &
Creelman Ch 1, 2
Gescheider,
Chapter 3;
Dave Heeger
Signal Detection
Theory Handout
9
Nov 4, 6
Psychoacoustics,
SDT, Frequency
selectivity
Loudness, Pitch and
Timbre
10
Nov 11, 13
11
Nov 18, 20
12
13
Nov 25, 27
Dec 2, 4
14
Dec 9 last
class
The Vestibular
System
Exam
Period
Final exam date tobe-announced
Binaural hearing
and sound
localization
Speech Perception
Auditory Perceptual
Organization
Plack Ch 5
Nov 6, #4: Signal
detection theory
Plack Ch 6, 7
Nov 13, #5:
Psychophysical tuning
curves
Nov 20, #6: Perceptual
learning
Plack Ch 9
Plack Ch 11
Plack Ch 10
Schiffman
chapter
#4 Nov 13
#5 Nov 20
#6 Nov 27
Dec 4, #7: ITD
sensitivity and /or HRTF
demo
#7 Dec 9
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Dec 11-22
Assignment Schedule (later due dates may change if lectures fall behind schedule)
Assignment Topic
Date Available (to
Due Date
Number
begin looking it over)
1
Sinusoids & simulation in Excel
Sept 16
Sept 25
2
Sinusoids and dB
Sept 30
Oct 9
3
Sound analysis and representation
Oct 14
Oct 23
4
Signal detection theory
Nov 4
Nov 13
5
Psychophysical tuning curves
Nov 11
Nov 20
6
Perceptual learning
Nov 18
Nov 27
7
ITD sensitivity
Dec 2
Dec 9
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