?We need two ears, So that a bad word Flying into one Can fly out of the other'
M. Coton
31.1 Auditory sensory system
31.2 Vestibular sensory system
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31.1. Auditory sensory system
The auditory sensory system is the sensory system providing encoding of acoustic stimuli and determining the ability of animals and humans to navigate in the environment by evaluating acoustic stimuli. Peripheral parts of the auditory system are represented by hearing organs and phonoreceptors in the inner ear. The auditory and visual sensory systems interact to produce speech, a child associates objects with their names. The auditory system perceives sound vibrations of the environment with a frequency from 16-20 Hz to 16-20 kHz and generates sound sensations. Sound is vibration of a medium in the form of alternating waves of compression and rarefaction produced by a vibrating object. In the frequency response of sound, tone and noise are distinguished. Tones are harmonic vibrations with one audio frequency (for example, the sound of a tuning fork) or additional frequencies that are multiples of the main frequency - overtones (for example, tones of musical instruments). Noise is a sound consisting of unrelated, non-repeating frequencies (for example, vibration of machines). The energy characteristic of sound is intensity measured in watts (from 10-12 w/m2 - minimum threshold, up to 10 w/m2 - pain threshold). The ratio of these intensities is 1013. The minimum threshold is taken as 0, all other intensities are expressed through the deci-
mal logarithm of its relationship to the threshold. When using decibels, the entire range of intensity of perceived sounds up to a pain threshold fits into 130 decibels (dB). The auditory system consists of peripheral, conductive and cortical division.