New edition

This introductory text book introduces the principles of signals and systems analysis to students of speech and hearing sciences, including psychologists, audiologists, phoneticians and speech therapists.

Beginning with an examination of what signals and systems are, the book develops a thorough background from which many of the most important issues in speech and hearing can be tackled. The knowledge gained is applied directly to topics like measuring sound pressure with decibels, understanding the functioning of the cochlea, interpreting spectrograms, and explaining the acoustic aspects of speech. More than 300 illustrations, all drawn specifically for the book, present the relevant concepts using only minimal mathematics. An informal, friendly and informative style of writing is maintained throughout. The newly revised edition has more emphasis on the digital techniques which have become so prevalent in the field, particularly as regards the processes used to make speech spectrograms.

Praise for the first edition "I'm happy to recommend this text to any prospective reader-be they student or established worker in the speech and hearing sciences-who seeks a non-mathematical treatment of the elements of signals and systems theory which underpin their subject." - Journal of Sound and Vibration.

"...[will] become a standard for both advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Communication Sciences and Disorders...it has no competition." - Irving Hochberg, City University of New York.

What is new in the second edition?

Since the last edition of the book, digital techniques have almost completely replaced analogue in the recording, manipulation, storage and transmission of signals. This has been reflected by changes throughout the book in the kind of instrumentation described.

Three chapters have been heavily revised:

Chapter 11: dealing with spectrograms, has been much extended and describes the two different ways spectrograms can be constructed – through filter banks and time windowing – and the relationship between them.

Chapter 12: now focuses on the notion of the auditory periphery as a set of systems, showing how its function is analagous to that of making a spectrogram.

Chapter 14: dealing explicitly with digital signals and systems, has been expanded greatly to give concrete examples of digital systems and digital signal processing, including the notion of infinite impulse response (IIR) and finite impulse response (FIR) filters.

Please visit http://info.emeraldinsight.com/promo/signals.htm to watch a video interview with the authors download a sample chapter and to register to receive a set of electronic sample chapters for inspection from the new edition when they become available in May 2010.