h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A502606
Oops.. I made a mistake on my previous post. Sorry!!!!
I'll repeat myself here.
I noticed there weren't any guide entires on hearing, or even much on sensory perception. Since this is
sort of my specialty, I thought I'd do a core dump on the topic.
This guide entry introduces how our senses work in a general way and then uses hearing to
specifically discuss how the stimulus gets from "out there" (the radio that's on next to your desk) to "in
here" (i.e. you "hear" your favorite song on the radio).
I hope its not too dull or technical, but I welcome any and all comments.
Thanks (and sorry for the spam)
Ari

Hi Ariel,
I think maybe you're trying to cover too much ground for one article here and some areas don't come over so well focussed as others. It's clear you've got a lot of knowledge (and ?work experience) on the workings of the inner ear and this feels like a first draft of several articles on the subject!
To maintain the focus, I'd maybe save the introductory section for a whole other article on sensory perception. You could then concentrate on the hearing mechanisms themselves and you'd still be covering at least three topics (general human hearing, musical pitch perception, hearing loss and repair).
Only my opinions of course and you may feel free to ignore them.

Hi Ariel,

there are 2 typos:
A sin wave --> A sine wave
the faster the frequency --> higher

IMHO the introduction is a bit too long, talking about all the senses and the bees.

I'm not sure if the sense of gravity and balance (also located in the ears) is a sense which to count as No. 6, perhaps you know better.

As to signal processing in the brain, there's the most remarkable "Party" effect: Your brain is able to tell that your name was mentioned somewhere across the room, even if 80 people were talking simultaneously.

And I'd like to see some numbers there (frequency range vs. age, sensitivity over frequency, logarithmic volume perception, and such).

Bossel

Hi Ariel,

I discovered your article last night (3am actually) and was too tired then to get my fingers coordinated. I'm a bit more awake now.

I thought it was very interesting. The way the brain sorts out incoming data is just remarkable. I read something about bats' sense of hearing once (one of Richard Dawkins books) and he described the way bats sensed objects by echo location as being very similar to the way we see, possibly with colour and texture sensed from the returning sound wave length. It was absolutely fascinating - as is this article of yours.

Sal

Oh, that's what I forgot to mention -- great article for sure!

Thanks
Bats are really interesting... I was thinking an entry on echolocation would be fun to write in the near furture.
I was wondering if you think I should break this thing down.. is it too long? To technical (even sans numbers)?
I could do sort of a general article on sensory systems and then do something specifically on hearing separately.
What do you think?
Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it!
cheers-
Ariel

It's not too long, but would be better readable if you break it into smaller paragraphs. And the Towers frown upon "I" and "we", so you'd better change that into 3rd person style.

Entries on all the senses, sounds good! But do check if these topics haven't been covered already, there won't be /two/ Edited entries on the same subject matter.

"...Since this is sort of my specialty, I thought I'd do a core dump on the topic." Yes, please!

I don't think it's too long or too technical. If anything, it's too short given all you want to cover. My vote's for this article to concentrate on hearing as that seems to be your speciality. It's a fascinating subject and you've the basis for an excellent article here. (Oh and I agree with Bossel about the use of shorter paragraphs.)

Congratulations Ariel on a fascinating article.
Not too hard for a layman {me} to understand!

Thanks for all your comments. I really, really appreciate the help in making this read better.
I've taken several of your suggestions into account. Its still not a very quantitative piece because I'm afraid that might scare people off. Nonetheless, I narrowed the focus a bit, shortened up the paragraphs for readability and just generally tweaked it a bit.
let me know what you think
cheers-
Ari

It's brilliant, Ariel.
Well done!
Are you going to start writing abouts now?

That's great Ariel! I was wondering, you know where you say "Each hair cell in the cochlea has its favorite frequency, the one that makes it just fire away blissfully"? I've noticed that men seem to prefer more bass when listening to music, than women. Is there any difference, do you know, between the hair cells in the ears in men and women?

I hope you will do an entry on the hearing of bats when you get time. It's so interesting, everyone should be able to read about it in The Guide.

Sal

I have to tell you this. I've just been watching the Human Body (episode "First Steps"), presented by Robert Winston on BBC Knowledge channel. There were electron microscope photos of the inside of the human ear including those hair bundles. Amazing! It's on again at 6pm if anyone wants to watch it. I recommend it - the whole programme is interesting but those pictures of the anatomy of the human ear are just breath-taking.

By the way, in another Human Body episode, about our evolution, there were other pictures of those tiny little bones in the ear and RW was saying they evolved from the gills of our fish ancestors.

Sal

Great Ariel, I think that reads much better now. This is all fascinating stuff.

Thanks so much for all your help guys.... its so nice to have such constructive comments from everyone to help me get the ideas across better. Kudos to you! I guess now we wait and see if it gets discovered by the powers that be.
Sal- facinating program! I have heard some rumours about differences between male/female ears but I think its all pretty anecdotal at this point. I had also heard that those bones were derived from gills... biology is amazing, eh? I think marine mammal ears (dolphins and whales) are pretty amazing as well... future article perhaps.
OK... I'll get cracking on those bats!

Editorial Note: This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review forum because this entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

If they haven't been along already, the Scout who recommended your entry will post here soon, to let you know what happens next. Meanwhile you can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.h2g2.com/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!

A big Thank you!!! to the editors and the Scout who found the article. A shout from the rooftops to the folks here who helped me improve the article.
Thanks to everyone!

oops! i'm a bit late, but what happens next is that you'll get e-mailed when it does get into the Edited Guide. congrats, and thanx for writing for the Guide!

Yippee! Congratulations!

Yes, biology and evolution are endlessly fascinating.

Bats next, followed by marine mammals - I can hardly wait ...

Sal

Well worthy!
Looking forward to your next contributions