1. Human Hearing
Michael Fernandez

2. A photo of the middle ear shows the ear
drum and attached ear bones that carry
sound waves to the inner ear.

3. The tensor tympani dampens the
transmission of mechanical action to protect
the inner from excessive sound levels.

4. Everything we hear has some level of distortion,
even sine waves. This is a visual representation of a
sine wave with distortion added to it.

5. A close up view of a perforated ear drum.

6. As we listen to a sound at a distance it gives off a
certain pitch, but as it gets closer the pitch seems to
get brighter even though it actually isn’t. Then the
pitch drops as it gets further away. This is the
doppler effect.

7. There appears to be a sweep of static in
the background ranging from the mids to
the high mids.

8. A wine glass bending and then breaking at it’s
resonating frequency. A great example of what
sound is capable of doing to our ears.

9. The outer hair cells act as biological
amplifiers and sharpens tuning of
incoming signals.

10. Inner hair cells transmit neural impulses
to the brain.

11. Aids are placed in the hollow opening of
our auditory canal (concha) to aid those
who suffer from hearing loss.

12. The auditory canal is where sound travels
before it gets to our brain. It acts as a
resonating tube.

13. The human ear is incapable of picking up
the high frequencies of a dog whistle. The
only way we can interpret it is through
visualization in a waveform.

14. The tragus is the small flap covering the
concha.

15. The tympanic membrane changes
pressure variations into mechanical
vibrations.

16. With this example you get the basic idea
of how frequencies travel from a speaker,
through the air and into our ears.

17. This is a diagram of the sequential
processing that occurs in the auditory
transduction chain.

18. Ossicles transfers acoustic
energy through mechanical lever
action.

19. A diagram of sound localization. This
refers to a listeners ability to identify the
origin of a detected sound in distance and
direction.

20. Summary
In conclusion, our ears play a vital part
throughout our lives. Our ears serve as tools to
recognize the things in our environment that
our eyes can’t see, but our actually all around
us.