Physics of the Ear Essay examples

When a person with normal hearing hears the sound travels along the ear then bounces against the ear drum. The eardrum, the bones inside, and the cochlea vibrate and move thousands of tiny hairs inside the ear. When these hairs move an electrical response occurs. This electrical response goes to the hearing nerve and then it is send to the brain.

The cochlea contains thousands of outer and inner hair cells that transduce the mechanical energy of sound into electrical energy and then deliver that electrical energy to the auditory nerve. The hair cells provide information about the frequency and intensity of the sound. The auditory nerve then transmits sound information to the brain, where a variety of complex pathways help us decipher what was actually heard (Jacob, n.d.). Therefore, much of hearing as we perceive it is under the control of the brain rather than the ear. Most commonly, sensorineural hearing loss is caused by hair cell damage in the cochlea, but it can also be caused by damage to the auditory nerve. Like it was described above, sensorineural hearing loss can have a variety of causes (Jacob, n.d.). A lot of different causes will lead to different symptoms.

The physiology of hearing starts with a vibration that occurs in the air which sends an acoustic signal to the ear drum. The signal is transduced into a mechanical signal that transmits through the inner ear and the cochlear nerve. Finally, the signal is

The middle ear consists of three bones, the malleus, incus, and stapes. The tensor teympany which is a muscle that attaches to the malleus bone, as well as the stapes which is a muscle which attaches to the stapes bone. These muscles help to keep the bone off of the membrane that they are on to stop damage from loud noise. And lastly there is a Eustachian tube which is the middle ear as well it helps with pressure.

The middle ear has three ossicles (tiny bones) the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup that connect the middle ear to the inner ear. When sound enters your middle ear, it causes the ossicles to vibrate. These vibrations then move into the cochlea, which is filled with fluid. When the vibrations move the fluid that is in the cochlea, it stimulates tiny hair cells that respond to different frequencies of sound. After the tiny hair cells are stimulated, they direct the frequencies of sound into the auditory nerve, as nerve impulses. (ASHA 2013)

Hearing serves a crucial benefit for understanding the world around us. During the 1940’s, Dr. Ramsdell realized that hearing serves four crucial function; symbolically we are informed or entertained, aesthetically hearing is naturally pleasing, warningly we are alerted or prepared, primitively we are aware of our surroundings [1]. The ear is typically divided into three sections, used to simplify the hearing process. The first section, or the outer ear, is composed of the auricle (skin covered cartilage), the auditory canal, and the tympanic membrane (the outer layer of the eardrum). The middle ear section contains the eardrum, tympanic cavity, and the ossicles. These ossicles are three small bones often referred to as malleus (hammer),

The main device that humans have that receive sound waves is the ear. The ear is shaped similar to a funnel and that allows it to collect the different sound waves that can reach it but , the brain is responsible

After watching Kelly and analyzing the actual surgery of the cochlea implant, the inner ear and how we receive signals makes more sense. To be honest I had to watch this video multiple times and look up ways they perform the surgery to get a better overall understanding. However thinking about how we pick up noise and hear sound differs between each individual, such as light. It all depends on our hair cells, which

That how the ear works but what about things we hear? When people speak sound travels

Just like the eyes the ears also have a good amount of layers. The first layer is the outer ear that is made from skin and cartilage, and due to its curvy shape our ears are able to catch the sound. The sound then travels from the outer ear to the tympanic membrane, this membrane forms the eardrum and vibrates in order to respond to sound waves. From the membrane the sound moves to the inner ear, the inner ear has three very small bones. These small bones send the sound information to the brain through the auditory nerve.

“Auditory Processing Disorder is a measurable neurological defect located in the higher auditory neural pathways. Sound waves enter each ear canal and are passed through the middle ear where they are “prepared” for delivery to the cochlea (part of the inner ear). The cochlea “transduces” the sound waves into electric nerve pulses, which are sent to the brain by way of the hearing nerve (VIII Cranial nerve). The eighth nerve inserts at the brainstem, where a complex network

The middle ear, which can be referred to as the Tympanic membrane, is responsible for transmitting sound waves from the outer ear into the inner ear. It accomplishes this by using three bones which are called the auditory ossicles. The three bones involved are the Malleus, the incus and stapes. These bones connect the tympanic membrane (eardrum) to the oval window of the inner ear. Each bone has a special function in the transmission of vibrations that will be discussed below. Although, the middle ear is usually good at maintaining balance and free from organisms; it can also be infected from other factors and complications.

Answer: The identification parameters for the finite-element model of middle ear is based on a model consisting of tympanic membrane, malleus and ligaments. Beer et al. has given a detailed description of the finite-element model where the eardrum is modeled as a thin curved shell, the malleus as a rigid body with inertial properties and the ligaments as pipe elements with longitudinal, bending and torsional stiffness1. The parameters for the finite-element model of middle ear can be divided into three groups:

Due to the physical limits of the middle ear, the ossicles and the tympanic membrane, the low frequency and high frequencies are attenuated while the mid frequencies are amplified. This happens because the tympanic membrane has variable stiffness and therefore sound moves differently in different areas. Generally, this contributes to the attenuation or filtering of the low frequencies. High frequencies are attenuated due to the limits of the ossicular chain. At these frequencies the ossicles are moving very quickly, so quickly that they tend to flex and stop articulating the way they are supposed to; this filters out the high

This movement is passed to an auditory inner ear that functions to convert sound vibrations into neural messages. This inner ear is called the cochlea. Then the spiral organ Corti, which is located in the cochlea, is sent into action every time the oval window