How the Human Ear Works
Human ear is an organ in the body that collects sounds, processes them and then sends the sound signal to the brain. Hearing is not the only job our ears are involved in. They do a lot of other things like: – helping us to keep our balance.
Sections of Human Ear: –
Ear is made of three different sections: –
- Outer Ear: – It consists of ear canal, ear drum and the pinna.
- Middle Ear: – Middle ear consists of ear drum, malleus, incus and stapes.
- Inner ear: – This section of ear consists of the auditory nerve, cochlea and the brain.
Sound waves enter the ear canal and make the ear drum vibrate. This causes movement in all the small bones in the middle ear. The membrane window of the cochlea gets knocked by the last bone and the fluid in cochlea starts moving. A response in the hearing nerve is triggered by this movement.
Quick Facts: –
- The inner ear is called cochlea because of its spiral shape.
- Earwax is the messy, sticky stuff that protects the ear canal. It contains some chemical that fight off various infections.
- Ossicles (malleus, incus and stapes) are the tiniest, most delicate bones in human body.
- Sound is a progressive acoustic wave or a series of variations in air pressure.
- A neural or cochlear hearing loss is known as sensorineural hearing loss. It can be caused by various things like old age or loud noise.
- The outer ear gathers all the sound waves and sends them to the eardrum that starts vibrating.