Volume 1: The Ear (edited by Paul Fuchs) Volume 2: The Auditory Brain (edited by Alan Palmer and Adrian Rees) Volume 3: Hearing (edited by Chris Plack) Auditory science is one of the fastest growing areas of biomedical research. There are now around 10,000 researchers in auditory science, and ten times that number working in allied professions. This growth is attributable to several major developments: Research on the inner ear has shown that elaborate systems of mechanical, transduction and neural processes serve to improve sensitivity, sharpen frequency tuning, and modulate response of the ear to sound. Most recently, the molecular machinery underlying these phenomena has been explored and described in detail. The development, maintenance, and repair of the ear are also subjects of contemporary interest at the molecular level, as is the genetics of hearing disorders due to cochlear malfunctions.

Volume 1: The Ear (edited by Paul Fuchs) Volume 2: The Auditory Brain (edited by Alan Palmer and Adrian Rees) Volume 3: Hearing (edited by Chris Plack) Auditory science is one of the fastest growing areas of biomedical research. There are now around 10,000 researchers in auditory science, and ten times that number working in allied professions. This growth is attributable to several major developments: Research on the inner ear has shown that elaborate systems of mechanical, transduction and neural processes serve to improve sensitivity, sharpen frequency tuning, and modulate response of the ear to sound. Most recently, the molecular machinery underlying these phenomena has been explored and described in detail. The development, maintenance, and repair of the ear are also subjects of contemporary interest at the molecular level, as is the genetics of hearing disorders due to cochlear malfunctions.

The first volume in The Oxford Handbook of Auditory Science, The Ear serves both as an introduction and as a reference work for anyone interested in how 'hearing' happens. It will be a valuable resource, for anyone interested in the ongoing challenge, and adventure, of understanding the mysteries of the ear.

Written by the world's leading scholars and researchers in sound studies, this handbook offers new and engaging perspectives on the significance of sound in its material and cultural forms.

Whether social, cultural, or individual, the act of imagination always derives from a pre-existing context. For example, we can conjure an alien's scream from previously heard wildlife recordings or mentally rehearse a piece of music while waiting for a train. This process is no less true for the role of imagination in sonic events and artifacts. Many existing works on sonic imagination tend to discuss musical imagination through terms like compositional creativity or performance technique. In this two-volume Handbook, contributors shift the focus of imagination away from the visual by addressing the topic of sonic imagination and expanding the field beyond musical compositional creativity and performance technique into other aural arenas where the imagination holds similar power. Topics covered include auditory imagery and the neurology of sonic imagination; aural hallucination and illusion; use of metaphor in the recording studio; the projection of acoustic imagination in architectural design; and the design of sound artifacts for cinema and computer games.

Perceptual organization comprises a wide range of processes such as perceptual grouping, figure-ground organization, filling-in, completion, perceptual switching, etc. Such processes are most notable in the context of shape perception but they also play a role in texture perception, lightness perception, color perception, motion perception, depth perception, etc. Perceptual organization deals with a variety of perceptual phenomena of central interest, studied from many different perspectives, including psychophysics, experimental psychology, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and computational modeling. Given its central importance in phenomenal experience, perceptual organization has also figured prominently in classic Gestalt writings on the topic, touching upon deep philosophical issues regarding mind-brain relationships and consciousness. In addition, it attracts a great deal of interest from people working in applied areas like visual art, design, architecture, music, and so forth. The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization provides a broad and extensive review of the current literature, written in an accessible form for scholars and students. With chapter written by leading researchers in the field, this is the state-of-the-art reference work on this topic, and will be so for many years to come.