How We Hear

Good hearing is so important in our everyday lives, yet most people with normal hearing don’t even think twice about what it means to be able to hear well. Chatting with friends, listening to the sounds of nature, enjoying music or hearing warning signals – they take it all for granted.

Our hearing plays an important role in how we relate to our surroundings. It facilitates the forming of relationships and opens up a wealth of sensory experiences. It is also very complex and extremely sensitive.

So, let’s give it the attention it deserves …

How hearing works

The ear is an amazing and incredibly skilled organ that performs the wonderful and highly complex task of hearing. It can distinguish between 7,000 different pitches and enables the brain to locate sound sources.

The human ear consists of three parts – the outer, middle and inner ear.

Outer Ear : The outer ear picks up sound and transmits it to the eardrum via the ear canal.

Middle Ear :  Sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate. The ossicles, called malleus, incus, and stapes, pass the vibration on to the inner ear.

Inner Ear :  The cochlea converts movements of the ossicles into electrical signals. The auditory nerve transmits the signals to the brain.

How we hear

Let’s follow a sound wave through the ear to get a better understanding of how ears work and what role they play in the hearing process.

• Sounds enter the ear canal:

When these sound waves reach the ear, they travel down the ear canal and hit the eardrum, making it vibrate.

• The ear drum and bones of hearing vibrate:

Three tiny bones in the middle ear link the vibrating eardrum to a tiny bone structure in the inner ear called the cochlea.

• Fluid moves through the inner ear:

The cochlea is filled with liquid that carries the vibrations to thousands of tiny hair cells.

• Hearing nerves communicate to the brain:

The movement in the fluid causes the cells to carry a message to the nerve that is connected to the brain, where they are interpreted as sounds.

The following video demonstrates how hearing works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AcS2AfJ9OM&feature=youtu.be