Matthew Range

The Mechanisms of Human Hearing

The human ear is an important and complex part of the human body, it has many different attributes
within it which allows us to hear. We take advantage of the fact that we are able to hear as we do
this every day in a constant loop. The ear is split up into many different parts, which you will know
about at the end of this article. Without us humans having hearing we will not be able to do the
simple thing as communicate with our friends and family, we will also not be able to hear
soundwaves created from noises or instruments. This means that we wouldnt be able to hear music
which then means the world would quite possible be boring.
The structure and function of parts of the ear
The ear is split up into three main parts with loads of parts of the ear within them. The three parts of
the ear are; the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. Within each of these parts there are
many different mechanisms that all work together to allow us hear the simple sound, the ear is very
complex so having it split up into different parts will allow us to understand.
The outer ear:
The outer ear consists of two components that allow us to hear and work with other components.
The two components in the outer ear are the ear flap and the ear canal.
The first component of the outer ear is the only visual part that you
can see of the whole complex part of the ear. This part is the ear flap
known as the pinna, the main objective of this part of the ear is there
to provide protection to the middle ear. This is because if the middle
ear gets damaged it will affect the ear drum which is the most
important component of the ear, if the ear drum does get damaged it
will cause hearing loss which means you may be unable to hear. The
pinna is also there to direct the soundwaves towards the ear canal so
the other components in the middle ear and begin to work. By the
pinna doing this is will allow you to hear all soundwaves that pass you
as they are being directed into the middle ear.
The second part of the outer ear, which is the second part in the line
of which sound travels to the ear drum is the ear canal. The ear canal
is a 2cm tube which directs the soundwaves towards the ear drum.
Because of the length of the ear canal, it is capable of amplifying
sounds with frequencies of approximately 3000Hz. Sound only travels
through the ear canal, its basically acting as a pathway for
soundwaves to pass through to the next stage.
The middle ear:
The middle ear is more complex than the outer ear, as this is made up of another 2 components, but
these two components are important but within themselves they are also complex. This part of the
ear is air filled as all the air that has passed in has come from the outside which carries the air
particles which are soundwaves.
The first component of the middle ear is the ear drum. The ear drum is a tightly stretched membrane
that vibrates when incoming sound waves reach it. The compressed waves hit it which make the

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membrane vibrate. If the ear drum did not vibrate it will mean that you wouldnt be able to hear as
it needs to vibrate to ensure that the next part of components in the middle can work. As the
vibration ensures the next part of the middle ear works.
The second component of the middle ear is split up into three different types. The middle ear is
essentially 3 different types of bones that move when the eardrum is stretched and expanded. The 3
bones that will move from the pressure of the ear drums are; Stirrup, Hammer and Anvil. Together
these 3 bones are called the Ossicles.
The stirrup bone is the smallest bone in the human body, this bone is connected to the eardrum and
what this does, like the other bones, ensures the connection is complete and passes the vibrations
that are created on to the next stage.
The next bone in the link is the hammer bone, which carries the vibration to the third bone which is
the anvil.

The inner ear:

The inner ear is the most complex part of the human ear as this is where most of the hard and
confusing parts happen. The inner ear has 3 components within it, these components are; Cochlea,
Auditory nerve and Eustachian tube.
The first part of the inner ear is the cochlea, this carries on straight from the anvil bone which is still
carrying the vibrations from the eardrum. The cochlea is a snail shaped canal which is full of a liquid.
The cochlea is a sense organ which turns the sound waves into nerve impulses to be sent to the
brain. When it is sent to the brane it means that we are able to hear it, as the brane is the main
object that allows us to hear and feel things. The whole length of the cochlea can stretch up to 3cm
long if it was unravelled from its snail like shape. The cochlea also has 20,000 hair like nerve cells
which perform a vital role in allowing us to hear. Without the cochlea we would have nothing send
up to our brain which in total will allow us to hear.
The second part of the inner ear is the auditory nerve, this is important as this is a string of nerves
which link the brain and the cochlea together. Without this component all of the work that the
cochlea has done will not be able to be sent to the brain. Which in turn means that we will be unable
to hear.

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The final part of the inner ear and the whole complex components of the ear is the Eustachian tube,
this is here to simply reduce air pressure within your ear. This is very important as if you have high
air pressure within your ear it will be highly uncomfortable but also it will be difficult to hear. It will
feel like something is stuck at the bottom of your ear and will be very irritating. This tube is also to
drain infections and debris that may be deep in your ear, however this tube can have problems, one
problem that it can have is that it can get blocked so if you do get an infection it cannot be taken
out.
Its crazy to think that all of these separate complex components work together very quickly
constantly throughout the day to allow us to hear. If one component fails it will be harder for us to
hear and will cause day to day life to be a struggle.

The limits of hearing

Within the world there may be limits in hearing, this could be the environment you are in or
depending on how good your hearing actually is.
The range of human hearing is 20Hz to 20 kHz this means that humans can only hear things that
create frequencies which are between these ranges. For example if a sound created a frequency
which is 25 kHz we would not be able to hear it as the frequency would be at a too high of a level.
However if a frequency of a sound is 19 kHz we will be able to hear it as it is in the frequency hearing
range. A good exercise to use within logic is the harmonics tutorial which has been explained further
up.
Another limit of hearing is how far a human can actually hear. This is all depending on how the loud
the sound is itself, for example if it was casual chatting a human can listen up to 20 metres away
from where the source of the sound is actually coming from. If it was shouting then a human can
hear it from 100 metres away. Its good to know the certain range of human hearing itself as when
communicating with people they might not actually hear you depending on how far away they are
from you and how you are speaking to them.
Have you ever had pain while listening to music too loud or have a loud noise such as a police car
pass you in the street? This might be because that noise has reached the threshold of pain. The
threshold of pain is when the decibels (dB) of a sound is too high and it can damage you eardrum.
Sources say that the threshold of hearing is 120 dB, for a matter of fact this is also the decibel level
which is at the end of the frequency spectrum, so any sound which is higher than 20 kHz means it
will cause damage to your ear and will possible deafen you. In order to stay safe ensure that you are
aware of how loud you listen to music as if you are listen to anything that is near 120 dB you should
be wearing ear protection.
A way of calculating decibels is using the Bel scale, the scale shows how loud certain objects are and
how intensified they are if you was to hear them for a certain amount of time. The bel scales is

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measured by using a thing called bels and this is when for example the if the intensity level was 1000
it would be measured as 3 bels, or if the intensity level was 1,000,000 it will be measured as 6 bels.
In order to know how many bels an intensity is all you have to do is count how many zeros there are
and that is the number of bels.
Looking at the graph you can see
that a shotgun is the highest noise
on the decibel scale which means
without using ear protection this can
cause the most damage to the ear as
this is at 160 on the scale. On the
other hand a pin falling is on 15 on
the scale so you can imagine the
difference between the two as you
can hardly hear a pin drop in some
circumstances.

Psychoacoustics
Psychoacoustics is the scientific side of hearing and how our ear works, this uses tests to see how a
humans ears actually work. Psychoacoustics studies the psychological responses to sound, so this
how all of the mechanisms inside our ear actually work with our brain. For many people this can be
different to one another, such as people can hear better out of one ear better than the other for no
reason.
One way of explaining how the brain and ear works together is the cocktail party effect. The cocktail
party effect proves to show how we can focus on different things around us with the majority of the
time not realising that we do it, us as humans have the ability to
tune into other peoples convocations or other noises around us
without actually being there and properly focusing on it. Imagine
yourself at a party and you are standing with a group of 4 to 5
people however, there are other groups of people around the room
talking about something that is totally different to what you are
talking about. Without even realising it you can tune into another
convocation that is happening at the other side of the room and
listen to exactly what they are speaking about even though you are
not in the convocation and are even standing with them. The reason
for this is that your body is always aware of what is going on around
you, and if it hears any type of word that gains your brains interest it creates a stimuli to make your

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body alert and more focused, the reason for this is because your body doesnt want anything bad
happening to it. In theory it is a safety mechanism.
The Haas effect is another example of psychoacoustics, this is when we are able to determine the
location of a sound around us. Although the pinna of our ear is facing forward and is there to direct
soundwaves into our ear, we can also hear sounds that are coming from behind us. This used to be
extremely helpful when we used to be barbaric cavemen as other animals that wanted to kill us
would try to sneak up behind us. However because of this skill we was able to hear them and was
either able to kill them or try to escape. Without this we could have died from our prey and maybe
not exist today.
The masking effect is caused when a sound of one object is over shadowed and drowned out by
another noise from another object. For example if you are in the street talking to a friend you can
perfectly hear the convocation as the soundwaves from one another are able to reach your ears with
no problem. As you are having a nice chat suddenly a large loud truck drive past and then all of a
sudden you cannot hear the convocation you are having as the trucks soundwaves are larger and
more frequent when reaching your ear. This means that the soundwaves of the truck cover up the
soundwaves of the convocation which means you cannot hear it, or not able to hear it as clear as
before the truck appeared.
The Doppler Effect and beats are also good examples of psychoacoustic which has been explained
further up in the article.
Health and safety
In all aspects of anything you do in the world today health and safety is a highly important matter
which should be taken into an account at all times. Especially when it comes to your hearing as when
it is lost it is gone forever and there is no way of getting it back, if you lose your hearing that means
that your life becomes a whole lot harder.
To ensure safety at all times within workplaces there are now workplace laws that are enforced to
ensure that workplaces are safe to work in, this means that there has to be a limit on how loud a
work environment can be. The work environment limit at present day is now 85 decibels at all times,
this is for any working environment within the music industry. If an environment is at a higher level
then these and people get ear damage, fines can be issued. When a new worker is in training the
noise levels must not exceed 80 decibels as they are in training and are learning the environment
and are also a rookie which means they may forget to put their ear defenders on at one point and
could get ear damage from that one time. These set of rules are the the control of noise at work
regulations 2005.
There are simple pieces of safety equipment that will ensure that your ears and hearing are
protected at all times. The ear protection that you can use is ear defenders and ear plugs.

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Ear defenders:
Ear defenders are a larger more industrial way of protecting your ears as they
are for large work places such as constructional work. However ear defenders
can be used at things such as musical festivals if you are planning on being right
next to the speakers. Ear defender offer over ear protects and do not allow
many of the soundwaves to pass, however you can still hear things but only
slightly which means your ears will certainly not get damaged. Ear defenders
tend to be made out of hard plastics which mean that they are highly durable.

Ear plugs:
The really good earplugs fit fully in your ear, as they squeeze into your ear canal. Both
ear plugs and ear defenders do the exact same job and both do it highly similarly.
However because earplugs are smaller they are easier to carry around and use in
other places other than a construction site. An example of someone who uses ear
plugs is a DJ as they need to protect their ears too, because the ear plugs are so small
they are able to protect their ears without knowing they are there but also do things
such as using their headphones to mix with while their ears are 100% safe. Ear plugs
are genuinely made out of rubber or foam materials this ensures that they are
comfortable while offering the most protection possible.
Without ear protection we will have no way of protecting our ears when it comes to loud
environments, so if you are exposed to loud environments often such as work you will easily lose
your hearing in a matter of years. This is not good as it can cause pain and it will also make your life a
lot harder.
Within a studio environment it is highly recommended to not have the monitor speakers loud as
they are highly powerful little speakers, and because studios tend to be in small environments the
sound is always going to be within the small space. While more soundwaves are being create the
other ones are still bouncing off of the wall and travelling around the room. So it is wise to not have
it loud as the continuous production of waves will be too loud while the other ones are still travelling
around the room.
It is highly important to be aware of the volume of everything or what kind of pieces of equipment
you are around, if you know it is going to be loud wear ear protection otherwise you will regret it
and either be in pain or have no hearing at all.