Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Auditory system
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Auditory system
The human ear picks up sound from every direction then translates the data into something that your brain can understand. The ear is unique unlike your sense of smell; taste and eyesight your hearing system relies solely on your physical movement.
Objects produce sound when they vibrate in matter, these could be gas such as air, solid like earth or even liquid such as water. Usually we hear and pick up sounds travelling through the air in our atmosphere. If something moves in the atmosphere it will move the air particles around the particle, carrying the vibration through the air.
There are three things that your ear does in order to receive sound; Send the sound into the hearing part of the ear, Sense the deviation in the air pressure then finally translate these deviation’ into electrical signals that your brain can actually understand.
The pinna the part of the ear that can be seen quite clearly is responsible for catching sound waves; the pinna faces mainly forward and has curves which help determine which way the sound is coming from. If a sound is coming from below or above y...
Hearing allows us to take in noises from the surrounding environment and gives us a sense of where things are in relation to us. All those little folds on the outside of the ear, called the tonotopic organization, make it so sound waves in the air are directed to the ear canal, where they can be further processed. Once in the ear, the sound waves vibrate the ear drum, which tell the ear exactly what frequency it is sensing. The vibration of the ear drum is not quite enough to send a signal to the brain, so it needs to be amplified, which is where the three tiny bones in the ear come into play. The malleus or hammer, incus or anvil, and stapes or stirrup amplify this sound and send it to the cochlea. The cochlea conducts the sound signal through a fluid with a higher inertia than air, so this is why the signal from the ear drum needs to be amplified. It is much harder to move the fluid than it is to move the air. The cochlea basically takes these physical vibrations and turns them into electrical impulses that can be sent to the brain. This is...
This may happen unconsciously, as is usually the case with soft background noise such as the whoosh of air through heating ducts or the distant murmur of an electric clothes dryer. Sometimes hearing is done semi-consciously; for instance, the roar of a piece of construction equipment might momentarily draw one's attention. Conscious hearing, or listening, involves a nearly full degree of mental concentration. A familiar instance in which listening takes place would be a casual conversation with a friend or colleague. In such cases, the sound waves entering the ear are transferred to the brain, which then
If you put your finger gently on a loudspeaker you will feel it vibrate - if it is playing a low note loudly you can see it moving. When it moves forwards, it compresses the air next to it, which raises its pressure. Some of this air flows outwards, compressing the next layer of air. The disturbance in the air spreads out as a travelling sound wave. Ultimately this sound wave causes a very tiny vibration in your eardrum - but that's another story.
Unless you travel into the vacuum of space, sound is all around you every day.. You hear sounds; you don't touch them. But as the vibrations that sound creates in other objects. The idea that something so intangible can lift objects can seem unbelievable, but it's a real phenomenon.
Briefly stated, the outer ear (or pinna) 'catches' and amplifies sound by funneling it into the ear canal. Interestingly, the outer ear serves only to boost high frequency sound components (1). The resonance provided by the outer ear also serves in amplifying a higher range of frequencies corresponding to the top octave of the piano key board. The air pressure wave travels through the ear canal to ultimately reach and vibrate the timpanic membrane (i.e.-- the eardrum). At this particular juncture, the pressure wave energy of sound is translated into mechanical energy via the middle ear.
First let’s look at what happens when you hear music. Here is a diagram that shows and explains what happens when you listen to music. Outer ea...
Because the vestibular labyrinth and the auditory structure are formed very early in the development of the fetus and the fluid pressure contained within both of them is mutually dependent, a disorder in one of the two reciprocating structures affects the (2). The vestibular system accomplishes three tasks. First, it contributes to an individuals sense of equilibrium in relation to the force of gravity and thus adds to the subjective sense of motion and spatial orientation. Second, inputs coming from the vestibular system convey information to the bodys muscles and posture. Third, while the head and body are in motion, the vestibular system controls eye movements so that images remain steady and in focus.
In my life, I've had a major setback that has changed how I live life day to day. When I was five, I was diagnosed with permanent hearing loss. I have hearing loss in both ears, mostly in higher frequencies, but I still have some hearing loss in the lower ones too. Since I was 5, it has only gotten worse, just in the past year there has been drastic changes in the frequencies that I can't hear. Hearing loss affects me day to day, for example if anyone whispers something to me, nine of ten times I can't hear what they are saying. My academics also get affected because sometimes I can't hear what we have for homework over all of the background noise of people packing up, so sometimes I just don't do homework because I never heard it in the first place. Not doing homework because I can't hear it affects my grades as I will get zeros for not doing it.
momentum transfer when air molecules collide. Our ‘subjective impression’ about the frequency of a sound is called pitch. High pitch has high vibration frequency, while low pitch has a low vibration frequency. A pure musical tone consists of a single pitch or frequency. However, most musical tones are “complex summations” of various pure frequencies - one characteristic frequency, called the fundamental, and a series of overtones or harmonics Younger people can usually hear pitches with frequencies from about 20 hertz (infrasonic) to 20,000 (ultrasonic) hertz. We can’t hear above 20,000 hertz or below 20 hertz (ultra and infrasonic waves).
Hearing loss is often overlooked because our hearing is an invisible sense that is always expected to be in action. Yet, there are people everywhere that suffer from the effects of hearing loss. It is important to study and understand all aspects of the many different types and reasons for hearing loss. The loss of this particular sense can be socially debilitating. It can affect the communication skills of the person, not only in receiving information, but also in giving the correct response. This paper focuses primarily on hearing loss in the elderly. One thing that affects older individuals' communication is the difficulty they often experience when recognizing time compressed speech. Time compressed speech involves fast and unclear conversational speech. Many older listeners can detect the sound of the speech being spoken, but it is still unclear (Pichora-Fuller, 2000). In order to help with diagnosis and rehabilitation, we need to understand why speech is unclear even when it is audible. The answer to that question would also help in the development of hearing aids and other communication devices. Also, as we come to understand the reasoning behind this question and as we become more knowledgeable about what older adults can and cannot hear, we can better accommodate them in our day to day interactions.
The Hearing Loss Simulation Exercise was very realistic to me. Prior to the assignment, I had compacted cerumen in my ear which limited my hearing. The experience with one earplug was very much like that of my experience with the compacted cerumen. In both experiences my hearing was muffled. Additionally, I had to face my good ear to the speaker in order to understand what they were saying to me. Though with the exercise I know that I am able to take off the earplug. Yet with the actual occluded ear I was truly annoyed and tried to fix my hearing by “cleaning my ear with a Q-tip and with ear drops. Also, I am able to hear what I am saying which is extremely frustrating when you’re trying to converse with somebody.
The External or Outer Ear - comprises of the auricle or pinna which is the fleshy part of the outer ear. It is cup-shaped and collects and amplifies sound waves which then passes along the ear canal to the ear drum or tympanic membrane. The rim of the auricle is called the helix and the inferior portion is called the lobule. The external auditory canal is a carved tube and contains a few hair and ceruminous glands which are specialized sebaceous or oil glands. These secrete ear wax or cerumen. Both the hairs and the cerumen help prevent dust and foreign objects from entering the ear. A number of people produce large amounts of cerumen, and this sometimes cause the build up to be impacted and can bri...
spiraling clockwise in the northern hemisphere. The opposite happens where air is warmed by the sun or by the Earth's surface temperature. The resulting rising air is above a "low." Near the surface, air flows into the "low" to replace the rising air, spiraling counter-clockwise (Atmosphere 26). Highs and lows react to each other causing a variety of conditions. Driving up or down a mountain leads to a reduction or increase of air pressure in the outer part of the ear, creating a pressure difference across the eardrum, which separates the outer ear from the middle ear. The difference distorts the eardrum, so that sounds are muffled (What is Air Pressure 9). However, this can be taken care of by swallowing air and opening the Eustachian tube between the middle ear and the nasal cavity, which in turn is joined to the mouth.
Hearing is known to be an automatic function of the body. According to the dictionary, hearing is, “the faculty or sense by which sound is perceived; the act of perceiving sound,” (“hearing…”). Hearing is a physical and involuntary act; therefore, unless one is born with a specific form of deafness, everyone has the natural ability to hear sounds. Sounds constantly surround us in our everyday environments, and because we are so accustomed to hearing certain sounds we sometimes don’t acknowledge them at all (or “listen” to them). The dictionary definition of listening is, “to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing,” (“listening…”).
Sound is essentially a wave produced by a vibrating source. This compression and rarefaction of matter will transfer to the surrounding particles, for instance air molecules. Rhythmic variations in air pressure are therefore created which are detected by the ear and perceived as sound. The frequency of a sound wave is the number of these oscillations that passes through a given point each second. It is the compression of the medium particles that actually constitute a sound wave, and which classifies it as longitudinal. As opposed to transverse waves (eg. light waves), in which case the particles move perpendicular to the direction of the wave movement, the medium particles are moving in the same or opposite direction as the wave (Russell, D. A., 1998).