The term fish ear is a non-scientific term referring to the phase-locking hair cells in your inner ear system. These hair cells can be found in the vestibulum and as inner hair cells in the cochlea. They are responsible for the coding of the low frequency fine structure of mechanical waves. This is in contrast to the outer hair cells in the cochlea which are responsible for the tonotopical coding of the higher frequencies which are typical for speech sounds.
The fish ear is responsible for the balance (equilibrium), for understanding one voice in the presence of multiple speakers, for enjoying music, etc.
This app has been developed by Otoconsult for readers of the scientific journal Bio-Mens which has dedicated its March 2013 edition to hearing.
Test yourself
Download the app from the Google Play Store or the Apple AppStore and test the quality of your fish ear!
- Connect your cell phone to loudspeakers or headphones and put the volume to normal
- Fish Ears will guide you through a training session first to get acquainted with the task
- Basically, you will hear 2 sounds and your task is to say whether they are equal or different
- In case of doubt, pick ‘equal’ because otherwise you’ll be sanctioned
- The test takes no more than a few minutes
Get a score
The term fish ear is a non-scientific term referring to the phase-locking hair cells in your inner ear system. These hair cells can be found in the vestibulum and as inner hair cells in the cochlea. They are responsible for the coding of the low frequency fine structure of mechanical waves. This is in contrast to the outer hair cells in the cochlea which are responsible for the tonotopical coding of the higher frequencies which are typical for speech sounds.
Scores are based on your percentile rank compared to hearing listeners.
| Result | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Oops, this is not so good, you are beyond P99.99. If your hearing is fine, you should really run the test once more, and get better results! |
 |
To be honest, this could be better. You are at P99.99 (∆ ≤ 14 Hz). You may want to try again and get some better results… |
 |
This is fine, you are better than P99, which means that you perform like most of the hearing population (∆ ≤ 11 Hz). |
|
This is great, you are better than P50, which means that you belong to the better half of the hearing listeners (∆ ≤ 3 Hz). |
|
Wow, this is top, you are at P18, which means that only 18% of hearing persons perform as well as this (∆ = 1Hz). |
How does it work?
The Fish Ears app is a simplified version of the Disharmonic Intonation module of A§E, a psychoacoustic test battery to assess the hearing of hearing impaired listeners. In this test, two sounds are presented.
- One of both is a harmonic complex. This is a compound signal containing 4 sine waves, one of 200 Hz (the fundamental frequency F0), and three harmonics of 400, 600 and 800 Hz. This is represented in spectrogram A below. Each harmonic is presented 6 dB softer than the previous component.
- The second sound is the same complex, but at a certain point, F0 glides from 200 Hz to (200 + ∆) Hz. This sounds like an intonation and is represented in spectrogram B below.
Then there is an ‘adaptive algorithm’ which starts with a large ∆, so that the difference between A and B is very obvious. If you pick the correct answer ‘different’, the algorithm reduces ∆, and vice versa. Every now and then, the algorithm tries to fool you by presenting two sounds A (without intonation). This is to test the reliability of your responses. Through quite complex binomial calculations, the algorithm decides when you have reached the smallest ∆ which your ear is capable to discriminate from the fundamental frequency.
The human ear can only discriminate 200 Hz from, say 210 Hz by means of a coding strategy called ‘phase locking’. This means that the firing rate of the nerve to the brain follows the pace of the incoming sound, in this case 200 Hz or 210 Hz. And this capacity is an exclusive skill of the most ancient hair cells, hence the fish ear.[/toggle]
Read more
Are you curious and do you want to read more on this topic? This and many more tests have been developed by the Eargroup in Antwerp, Belgium. Here are some suggestions further reading:
- Download the Bio-Mens issue on hearing in Dutch or French
- Vaerenberg B, Pascu A, Del Bo L, Schauwers K, De Ceulaer G, Daemers K, Coene M, Govaerts PJ. Clinical assessment of pitch perception.
- Otol Neurotol 2011; 32: 736-41. Heeren W; Coene M; Vaerenberg B; Avram A; Cardinaletti A; del Bo L; Pascu A; Volpato F; Govaerts PJ. Development of the A§E test battery for assessment of pitch perception in speech. Cochlear Implants Intl 2012; 13(4): 206-19.
- Schauwers K, Coene M, Heeren W, Del Bo L, Pascu A, Vaerenberg, PJ Govaerts. Perception of pitch changes in hearing impaired adults with aided and unaided hearing loss. J Hear Science 2012; 2(3): OA25-34.
