Where Is That Sound?

by Greg Crowther

This short song about localizing sounds in space was written for Biology 220 at the University of Washington. The brain has two complementary means of determining a sound's left-to-right position: the "intensity pathway" through the LSO, and the "time pathway" through the MSO. Input to the ear closer to the sound should be louder than input to the other ear (intensity pathway), and input to the closer ear should be received earlier than input to the other ear (time pathway).

Though it takes a bit of extra work, this song is fun to sing in parts (e.g., "is that sound?" and "can be found?" can be echoed by the students) as a way of playing with the concept of sound localization.

Whe-he-he-here is that sound (is that sound)?
Whe-he-here can it be found (can be found)?

Is it to the left? Or is it to the right?
The LSO and MSO compare binaural spikes!
Tell me,

Whe-he-he-here is that sound (is that sound)?
Whe-he-here can it be found (can be found)?

Comparing left and right reveals the side the sound is on.
This happens in the brainstem -- more precisely, in the pons!
Tell me,

Whe-he-he-here is that sound (is that sound)?
Whe-he-here can it be found (can be found)?
Whe-he-he-here is that sound?

• MP3 (demo)

• sheet music (with melody play-back)

Songs like this one can be used during class meetings and/or in homework assignments. Either way, the song will be most impactful if students DO something with it, as opposed to just listening.

An initial, simple follow-up activity could be to answer the study questions below. A more extensive interaction with the song might entail (A) learning to sing it, using an audio file and/or sheet music as a guide, and/or (B) illustrating it with pictures, bodily poses, and/or bodily movements. The latter activity could begin with students identifying the most important or most challenging content of the song, and deciding how to illustrate that particular content.

(For this particular song, kinesthetic movements might include pointing left and right when these directions are mentioned in the lyrics.)

(1) What are the LSO and MSO?

(2) What does binaural mean?

(3) What are spikes, in this context?