Audio / Video

Making an effort to listen

  • 01:13:17

Description

Human hearing is enhanced by an active process that amplifies the ear's mechanical inputs, sharpens frequency discrimination, and compresses six orders of magnitude in the amplitude of sounds into only two orders of magnitude in output. In addition, spontaneous otoacoustic emissions emerge from ears in a very quiet environment, an indication that the active process can be so exuberant as to become unstable. Cooperativity between mechanoelectrical-transduction channels confers negative stiffness on the hair bundle, eliciting a dynamical instability that underlies the active process. Experiments on individual hair bundles have shown that the bundle's operation near this instability, the Hopf bifurcation, accounts for the four characteristics of the active process.

Details

Title

Making an effort to listen

Creator

University of California, Berkeley. Dept. of Physics

Published

Berkeley, CA, University of California, Berkeley, Dept. of Physics, March 28, 2016

Full Collection Name

Physics Colloquia

Type

Video

Format

Lecture.

Extent

1 streaming video file

Other Physical Details

digital, sd., col.

Archive

Physics Library

Note

Recorded at a colloquium held on March 28, 2016, sponsored by the Dept. of Physics, University of California, Berkeley.

originally produced as an .mts file in 2016

Speakers: Hudspeth, Jim.

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Collection

Physics Colloquia

Tracks

colloquia/3-28-16Hudspeth.mp4 01:13:17

Linked Resources

View record in Digital Collections.