Hearing: Beyond the Ears
Hearing: Beyond the Ears A traditional hearing test evaluates the ears . The ears are responsible for: Collecting sounds, Amplifying sounds, Organizing sounds, and then Transmitting the amplified and organized signal to the auditory nerve While the ears do the hearing, however, the BRAIN does the LISTENING! It is once those sound signals hit the nerve that the magic really happens! The signals travel from the ear to the brainstem, the midbrain, then the auditory cortices, crossing from one side to the other multiple times and sending information up and down that chain.n (photo from www.clearliving.com) The auditory cortex lives in the temporal lobe of the brain and each side does something different. The left side is responsible for things related to language and the right for things like tone and patterns. Together they work so that we can understand. Understanding happens when we apply meaning to the sounds we have heard. We compare it to the history of all the sounds w...