Binaural fusion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Binaural fusion is a cognitive process, used by animals to determine the direction from which sounds are heard, wherein the brain compares information from each ear and then translates the differences into a unified perception of the point in space from which a sound originates. The spatial cues include differnces in the arrival time and the intensity, or force, of sound waves reaching the ears from a specific point in space. These cues are processed in parallel as a series of distinct steps, eventually converging as the perception of a single sound. The difference in arrival time of sounds between the ears is used to determine the direction of a sound source in the horizontal plane.

The auditory system derives the pitch of complex tones from the tone's harmonics. The processing of pitch in the auditory cortex, via binaural fusion, enables locations to be determined.

[edit] See also

• Holonomic brain theory

[edit] External link

• PNAS.org - 'How do owls localize interaurally phase-ambiguous signals?' Kourosh Saberi, Haleh Farahbod, Masakazu Konishi, California Institute of Technology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (May 26, 1998)