Event:

Animals have evolved a variety of adaptations to enhance spatial hearing, such as the external, often moveable ears of mammals, the facial ruffs of barn owls and the coupled ears of insects and reptiles. Internally coupled ears (ICE) are well known from insects, where as early as 1941 Hansjochem Autrum showed that the coupling of locust ears greatly increased sound localization cues. The performance of coupled ears in vertebrates is less well understood and, until recently, theoretical modeling on the basis of the existing geometry was nonexistent. In principle, internally coupled ears enhance directional hearing, because both sides of the eardrum are exposed to the sound wave and the resultant of external signal and internal coupling provides the tympani with input. The resultant eardrum motion is thus a function of both the phase and intensity difference across the eardrums. The degree to which ears are coupled depends on both the anatomy of interior coupling, and the sound frequency, as well as on the animal’s physiological state. Since under normal circumstances the coupling is a strongly positive one, noise-robust, and coming for free energetically, it also promises interesting biomimetic spin-offs.

The present symposium on Internally Coupled Ears: Evolutionary Origins, Mechanisms, and Neuronal Processing from a biomimetic perspective is the first to focus on ICE as such and on the universal principles underlying its functioning. It will take place at the TUM Institute for Advanced Study (http://www.tum-ias.de/) at the Garching campus from Wednesday to Friday, June 18-20, 2014. Scientists and students who are interested are cordially invited.