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Auditory system
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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
Sound is localised to the ear by the pinna, travelling down the auditory canal, vibrating the eardrum. The eardrums vibrations are then passed down through the ossicles, three small bones known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup that then transfer the vibrations to the oval window of the cochlea. The cochlea is filled with fluid that when exposed to these vibrations stimulate the sterocilia. This small hair cells "wiggle" along to certain frequencies transferring the vibrations into electrical impulses that are then sent to the brain. If the ear is exposed to noise levels of too high an intensity the sterocilia are overstimulated and many become permanently damaged . (Sliwinska-Kowalska et. All,
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.
From this point, vibration of the connective membrane (oval window) transforms mechanical motion into a pressure wave in fluid. This pressure wave enters and hence passes vibrations into the fluid filled structure called the cochlea. The cochlea contains two membranes and between these two membranes, are specialized neurons or receptors called hair cells. Once vibrations enter the cochlea, they cause the lower membrane (basilar membrane) to move in respect to the upper membrane (i.e. the tectorial membrane in which the hair cells are embedded). This movement bends the hair cells to cause receptor potentials in these cells which in turn cause the release of transmitter onto the neurons of the auditory nerve.
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.
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...
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.
Sounds are produced by the vibrations of material objects, and travel as a result of
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.
Auditory processing is the process of taking in sound through the ear and having it travel to the language portion of the brain to be interpreted. In simpler terms, “What the brain does with what the ear hears”(Katz and Wilde, 1994). Problems with auditory processing can affect a student’s ability to develop language skills and communicate effectively. “If the sounds of speech are not delivered to the language system accurately and quickly, then surely the language ability would be compromised” (Miller, 2011). There are many skills involved in auditory processing which are required for basic listening and communication processes. These include, sensation, discrimination, localization, auditory attention, auditory figure-ground, auditory discrimination, auditory closure, auditory synthesis, auditory analysis, auditory association, and auditory memory. (Florida Department of Education, 2001) A person can undergo a variety of problems if there is damage in auditory processing . An auditory decoding deficit is when the language dominant hemisphere does not function properly, which affects speech sound encoding. (ACENTA,2003) Some indicators of a person struggling with an auditory decoding deficit would be weakness in semantics, difficulty with reading and spelling, and frequently mishearing information. Another problem associated with auditory processing is binaural integration/separation deficit. This occurs in the corpus callosum and is a result of poor communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. (ACENTA,2003) A person with this will have difficulty performing tasks that require intersensory and/or multi-sensory communication. They may have trouble with reading, spelling, writi...
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.
The ear is an organ of the body that is used for hearing and balance. It is connected to the brain by the auditory nerve and is composed of three divisions, the external ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The greater part of which is enclosed within the temporal bone.
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…”).