Hearing and Audition Videos

I am never satisfied with how I present certain concepts.  While researching materials on hearing, I ran across these two videos.  I hope you like them as much as I do.

3D Human Ear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jyxhozq89g&feature=fvwrel




The Process of Hearing and How it Works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O-adw-HyrQ






posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Exploritorium Sensation and Perception Exhibits

If you have never had the opportunity to check out the Exploratorium Page, block off the next three months and go to http://www.exploratorium.edu/ For those not having that kind of time, go to http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/nf_exhibits.html to view a number of exhibits (activities) specific to sensation and perception.

The exhibits for Seeing include:

• Mix-n-Match - You can mix just three colors of light to make over 16 million different colors!
• Depth Spinner - Does it feel like the walls are closing in?
• Changing Illusions - Tease your brain with five interactive illusions.
  
• Fading Dot - If you stare at this dot, for few moments it disappears
• Cafe Wall Illusion - Interact with the Cafe Wall Illusion.
• Postcard Exhibits - Four exhibits small enough to fit on postcards.
• Sliding Gray Step - Is it light gray or dark gray? It depends on the surroundings.
• Shimmer - Your eye movements make this design seem to shimmer.
• Trapezoidal Window - Sometimes things are not as they appear.
• Bird In A Cage - When your color vision tires, you can see colors that aren't really there.
• Squirming Palm - Can you make your palm squirm?
• Mona - Leonardo's famous model is used in an interesting perceptual experiment.
• The Temple Illusion - This ancient temple holds a secret...can you reveal the mystery?

The exhibits for Hearing include:

• Can You Find the Highest Note? - Three auditory illusions created by students from the Center for Electronic Art.
• Ladle Rat Rotten Hut - Listen to the story of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
• Vocal Vowels - Hollow plastic models of the human vocal tract turn the squawk of a duck call into vowel sounds.

Please be aware many of the above activities require a specific program (Shockwave, QuickTime VR, or Real Audio). As you have time, explore the other exhibits on the page especially those in the Mind section.

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Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has developed a website with a number of articles on sensation with a special emphasis on the brain. The list of articles can be found by clicking on the icon to the left.

The "New Imaging Techniques That Show the Brain at Work" article would work well in the Biological Influences Unit. Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World can be found at http://www.hhmi.org/senses/

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How Stuff Works - The Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat

This is the last of three postings from the "How Stuff Works" website. In this installment, the site explains the workings of the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat. Click on any of the links below to go to:

• The main homepage at http://www.howstuffworks.com/
• The health subdivision page at http://health.howstuffworks.com/
• The anatomy channel page at http://health.howstuffworks.com/anatomy-channel.htm

The below section is taken directly from the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat page of the site. Feel free to click on any of the links.

Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat

Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat are interconnected organs that are vital parts of several body systems. Discover how these organs work as well as conditions that can affect them. See more »

Explore These Categories:

• Ear
• Eye
• Nose & Throat

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Psych in the news

In an op-ed column on race, Charles Blow focuses on Harvard's Implicit Association Test and the findings that most whites "harbor a hidden bias" against blacks. Direct links to the tests are here ... and here's a 2006 column (and follow-up blog post) by John Tierney presenting the evidence against the IAT. (All from the NY Times)

A new paper in the Journal of Social Issues shows that multiracial adolescents who identify proudly as multiracial fare as well as — and, in many cases, better than — kids who identify with a single group, even if that group is considered high-status (like, say, Asians or whites). (Time)

Newsweek traces the history of the alleged autism-vaccination link in its Anatomy of a Scare.

Researchers found in a small study of 30 young iPod users that teens not only tend to play their music louder than adults but, often, are unaware of how loud they're playing it, and are thus unaware of their risk of subsequent hearing loss. (Time)

The FDA approves deep brain stimulation as a treatment for OCD. (Chicago Tribune)

And finally, this is just sad. Not only did research show the men view bikini-clad women as objects (based on 21 Princeton boys as subjects) but no one has actually bothered to see if the same is true in reverse ("women may also depersonalize men in certain situations, but published research on the subject has not been done"). Sigh. (CNN)

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