How our brain processes sound

Opening presentation by Prof. Dr. Dr. Manfred Spitzer, Ulm
Saturday, September 10, 2011, 10:00-11:30 am

Unlike our eye, which delivers one million pixels to the brain about 20 twenty times per second, the input of our hearing is very modest. The eardrum jiggles on the left and jiggles on the right.

Everything else we hear - i.e. language, an orchestra with a hundred people of which one plays a bit off-key etc. – all these things develop in our brain on the basis of complex processing of the jiggling in the left and right ear. Further understanding of these processes helps us to recognise the difficulties we are confronted with in the entire line of sound processing, sound analysis and complex acoustic perception. Hearing is a very active process and among the fastest action our brain is capable of. Examples will show how acoustic analysis works on different processing levels.
 

Prof. Dr. Dr. Manfred Spitzer studied medicine, psychology and philosophy in Freiburg. Doctorate in medicine and philosophy, degree in psychology. Three research periods in the USA were decisive for the further scientific work of Manfred Spitzer at the interface between neurobiology, experimental psychology and psychiatry: in 1989/90 he was Visiting Associate Professor for Psychology at Harvard University, followed by Visiting Scientist for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oregon in 1992, and Visiting Full Professor for Clinical Psychology, again at Harvard University, in 1994. Since 1997 Manfred Spitzer has been Medical Director of the newly founded Psychiatric University Clinic in Ulm, Germany. (www.uniklinik-ulm.de/psy3)