Hearing system

How do we hear ?
Psychology 102
By Ear group
Near East university 2021
What is sound ?

In human physiology and

psychology , sound is the
reception of sound waves and
their perception by the brain.
 What do you hear?
Did you hear something? Maybe the
sound you hear was your cat meowing
in a slow voice . Maybe it’s your dog
barking in a loud voice or your door is
humming whizz, whizz...

Sound are every where around you all

the time, and you should hear all these
sounds at the same time with two
ears .

How does it happen ?

 Introduction to hearing system

Hearing or auditory perception, refers to our ability to

perceive sounds by detecting vibration, change in the
pressure of the surrounding medium through time,
through an organ such as the ear.

Hearing allows one to identify and recognize objects in the

world based on the sound they produce, and hearing
makes communication using sound possible. Sound is
derived from objects that vibrate producing pressure
variations in a sound-transmitting medium, such as air.
 The anatomy of hearing system

The anatomy of our hearing or the auditory system is

extremely complex but can be broadly divided into two
parts, a peripheral hearing system and a central
hearing system .
 The peripheral hearing system

• The peripheral hearing system is consists of the external , middle

, inner and the cochlear nerve that communicate with the central
nervous system.

• The external or outer ear : The outer ear is consists of visible

portion called the auricle or pinna which collects and direct
sound waves into the ear canal (external auditory meatus) , the
ear canal directs air borne sound waves towards the tympanic
membrane (ear drum) , the ear canal resonates sound waves and
increases the loudness of the tones in the 3000-4000 Hz range.
• The middle ear : The middle ear lies
within the temporal bone, and
extends from the tympanic
membrane to the lateral wall of the
inner ear.The middle ear is
connected and transmits sound to the
inner ear via the ossicular chain. The
main function of the middle ear is to
transmit vibrations from the tympanic
membrane to the inner ear via the
auditory ossicles .The ossicular chain
consists of the three smallest bones
in the body: the malleus, incus, and
stapes.
• The inner ear : The inner ear
has two main parts , the
cochlea , which is the hearing
portion and the semicircular
canals is the balance portion.
The cochlea is spiral-shaped,
similar to the shape of a
snail.The balance part of the
ear is referred to as the
vestibular apparatus. It is
composed, in part, of three
semicircular canals located
within the inner ear.
 The physiology of hearing

The process of hearing begins with the occurrence of a sound.

Sound is initiated when an event moves and causes a motion
or vibration in air. When this air movement stimulates the ear, a
sound is heard.
• Sound waves, which are really vibrations in the air around us, are
collected by the pinna(the outer part) on each side of our head and
travel through narrow passage way called the ear canal.

• the sound waves reach the ear drum. They make the ear drum
vibrate which in turn vibrates the three tiny bones
malleus ,incus ,stapes (the middle part).this bones amplify or
increase the sound vibration and send them to the cochlea(inner
part).
• The cochlea is snail shaped and is filed with a fluid. The
sound vibration make this fluid ripple which creates waves.

• Hair like structures called stereocelilia seat on the top of

hair cells and are grouped together as hair cell bundles
inside the cochlea .the hair cells inside the cochlea ride this
waves and the hair bundles are moved

• The hair bundles on top of this hair cell turns this movement
into electric signals.
• As the hair bundles are moved ions rush into the top of the
hair cells causing the release of chemicals or
neurotransmitters to the bottom of the hair cell.

• The chemicals bind to the auditory nerve cells and create

an electrical signal which travels along the auditory nerve to
the brain.

• The auditory nerve carries the electrical signals to the brain

which interpret the messages as sound that we recognize
and understand.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Outer and Middle Ears

The range of audible sound is approximately 10 octaves from somewh

16 and 32 Hz (cycles per second) to somewhere between 16,000 and
The sensitivity is low at the extremes but becomes much more sensitiv
Hz up to about 4,000 Hz when it again becomes rapidly less sensitive.

The range of maximum sensitivity and audibility diminishes with age. T

acts as a natural barrier between the two ears and thus a sound sourc
will produce a more intense stimulus of the ear nearest to it and incide
sound will also arrive there sooner, thus helping to provide a mechanis
localization based on intensity and time of arrival differences of sound.
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Outer and Middle Ears

High frequency hearing is more necessary than low frequency

hearing for this purpose and this explains why sound localization
becomes difficult with a high frequency hearing loss. The head
in humans is large in comparison to the size of the pinna so the
role of the pinna is less than in some other mammals.

Nonetheless, its crinkled shape catches higher frequency

sounds and funnels them into the ear canal. It also blocks some
higher frequency sound from behind, helping to identify whether
the sound comes from the front or the back.
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Outer and Middle Ears

The ear canal acts as a resonating tube and actually amplifies sounds at
between 3000 and 4,000 Hz adding to the sensitivity (and susceptibility
to damage) of the ear at these frequencies.

The ear is very sensitive and responds to sounds of very low intensity, to
vibrations which are hardly greater than the natural random movement of
molecules of air. To do this the air pressure on both sides of the
tympanic membrane must be equal. Anyone who has their ear blocked
even by the small pressure change of a rapid elevator ride knows the
truth of this. The Eustachian tube provides the means of the pressure
equalization.

It does this by opening for short periods, with every 3rd or 4th swallow; if
it were open all the time one would hear one's own every breath.
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Outer and Middle Ears

Because the lining membrane of the middle ear is a respiratory
membrane, it can absorb some gases, so if the Eustachian tube
is closed for too long it absorbs carbon dioxide and oxygen from
the air in the middle ear, thus producing a negative pressure.
This may produce pain (as experienced if the Eustachian tube is
not unblocked during descent of an aeroplane). The middle ear
cavity itself is quite small and the mastoid air cells act as an air
reservoir cushioning the effects of pressure change. If negative
pressure lasts too long, fluid is secreted by the middle ear,
producing a conductive hearing loss.
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Outer and Middle Ears

The outer and middle ears serve to amplify the sound signal.
The pinna presents a fairly large surface area and funnels
sound to the smaller tympanic membrane; in turn the surface
of the tympanic membrane is itself much larger than that of
the stapes foot plate, so there is a hydraulic amplification: a
small movement over a large area is converted to a larger
movement of a smaller area. In addition, the
ossicular chain is a system of levers which serve to amplify
the sound. The outer and middle ears amplify sound on its
passage from the exterior to the inner ear by about 30 dB.
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Inner Ear

The function of the inner ear is to transduce vibration into nervous
impulses. While doing so, it also produces a frequency (or pitch)
and intensity (or loudness) analysis of the sound. Nerve fibres can
fire at a rate of just under 200 times per second.
Sound level information is conveyed to the brain by the rate of
nerve firing, for example, by a group of nerves each firing at a rate
at less than 200 pulses per second. They can also fire in locked
phase with acoustic signals up to about 5 kHz. At frequencies
below 5 kHz, groups of nerve fibres firing in lock phase with an
acoustic signal convey information about frequency to the brain.
Above about 5 kHz frequency information conveyed to the brain is
based upon the place of stimulation on the basilar
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

The Inner Ear

Any frequency components lower than 1 kHz must travel more
than half the length of the basilar membrane, whereas high
frequency components, greater than 1 kHz must travel less than
half the length of the basilar membrane. Evidently the brain must
suppress high frequency information in favour of low frequency
information as the travelling wave on the basilar membrane
passes through places of high frequency resonant response.
An explanation is thus provided for the observation that low
frequency sounds, for example traffic noise, are very effective in
masking high frequency sounds, for example the fricatives of
speech, making telephones near busy streets difficult to use
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HEARING

How does the brain cope with intensity?

The physiological range of intensity of the normal ear is huge. As
a matter of interest it is the same as that of the eye when the
responses of the cones and rods are considered together; thus
the visual analogue is appropriate.
It is as wide as seeing a candle flicker on a dark night at a
hundred meters to looking indirectly into a bright sun. The range
is so great that only the logarithmic response characteristic of
variable rate processes and thus favoured by anatomical
systems, is capable of encompassing it. The normal range of
human hearing is from 0 to 100 dB(A), before sound becomes
uncomfortably loud.
 The nervous hearing system

The central auditory nervous system (CANS) includes nerve

fibers and nuclei (cell bodies) of the brain stem, midbrain, and
cortex.When the ear receives sound vibrations, there are hair
cells in the cochlea that vibrate and translate the sounds into
electrical signals. These electrical signals are transmitted to
the auditory nerve, which transmits the information to the brain.
The part of the brain that enables you to
understand electrical signals as specific
types of sounds is called the auditory
cortex. It’s located within the temporal lobe,
which is on either side of the brain in the
region called the cerebral cortex. There are
specific neurons in the auditory cortex that
can process specific frequencies of sound
that we perceive as high or low pitches.
There are also parts of the brainstem and
the midbrain that provide automatic reflex
reactions to certain types of sounds.
The Ability to Block Out Unwanted Sounds.

In a crowded noisy room a young person with normal hearing can tune
in and out conversations at will. This is known technically as the cocktail
party effect.

The brain quite automatically adjusts time of arrival and intensity

differences of sound from different signal sources so that the one which
is wanted passes to the cortex and all others which do not meet these
criteria are suppressed by feedback loops.

This requires both good high frequency peripheral hearing, two ears and
an additional central mechanism. Even in the presence of normal
bilateral peripheral hearing, the elderly lose part of the central
mechanism and find it difficult to listen in crowded rooms. This is
compounded if there is some hearing loss.
Spatial Localization

A normal human can localize quite accurately the source of

the sound. One knows from what direction the sound is
coming; one knows where to turn one's head to look for a
speaker; as one

knows where to look for an aeroplane or a bird. There are

specific neurones which deal with this in the mid brain.
On and Off Sounds

Hearing has an alerting function especially to warning signals of all

kinds. There are brain cells which respond only to the onset of a
sound and others which respond only to the switching off of the
sound, i.e. a change.

Think only of being in an air conditioned room when the air conditioner
turns on, one notices it. After a while it blends into the background and
is ignored. When it switches off, again one notices it for a short time
and then too the absence of sound blends into the background.

These cells allow the ear to respond to acoustic change - one adjusts
to constant sound - change is immediately noticeable. This is true too
with machinery and a trained ear notices change.
Interaction of Sound Stimuli with Other Parts of the Brain

Sound stimuli produce interaction with other parts of the brain to provide
appropriate responses. Thus, a warning signal will produce an
immediate general reaction leading to escape, a quickening of the heart
rate, a tensing of the muscle and a readiness to move.

A baby's cry will alert the mother in a way it does not alert others. The
sound of martial music may lead to bracing movement of those to whom
it is being played and induce fear and cowering in the hearts and minds
of those at whom it is being played.

Certain sounds can evoke anger, others pleasure. The point is that the
sensations produced by hearing are blended into the body mechanism in
the central nervous system to make them part of the whole milieu in
which we live..
 Absolute threshold of hearing

The absolute threshold of hearing (ATH) is the minimum sound level of

a pure tone that an average human ear with normal hearing can hear
where there are no other interfering sound present. The absolute
threshold relates to the sound that can just be heard by the organism.

Young children generally have a lower absolute threshold for sounds

since the ability to detect sounds at the lowest and highest ranges
tends to decrease with age
Reference:

1- Santa Fe, NM 87508Eldorado Audiology and Hearing Center5 Caliente Road

#5Santa Fe, NM 87508.

2-Sarah E.Ervin, M.M. CCC-A.

Alberti, P. W. (2001). The anatomy and physiology of the ear and

hearing. Occupational exposure to noise: Evaluation, prevention, and control, 53-
62.

3- University of Taxes Health Science Center at Houston ( HTHealth).

4- Humes LE, Busey TA, Craig JC, Kewley-Port D.

The effects of age on sensory thresholds and temporal gap detection in hearing, vi
sion, and touch
. Atten Percept Psychophys. 2009;71(4):860-871. doi:10.3758/APP.71.4.860
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