Hearing is a complex process that allows our ears to take in sensory information and interpret it to our brains for us to understand. All throughout history, humans and animals have relied on hearing to survive and communicate to each other, but how does this complex system work? For the purpose of this demonstration, we will use an example of how sound works when clapping your hands.

How It Starts: Vibe The Sound!

When you clap your hands, you are compressing the air particles between your two palms. This creates pressure waves. The air molecules are then forced to collide with other air molecules. The change in pressure causes higher pockets of higher or lower air pressure, creating what we know as a sound wave. When the sound waves are in occurrence with a medium (in this case, air) the sound is able to travel the distance for us to hear. 

An Ear-Tastic Adventure

Once the sound is transferred through a medium, it then goes on a "sound adventure" to your outer ear. This sensation vibrates off of your eardrum as well as your hammer, anvil, and stapes bones that sit right behind the eardrum. These three bones and eardrum are what we call our middle ear. This movement from the middle ear creates waves and movement towards the inner ear where our cochlea is located. You can think of this reaction like dominos, when one experiences movement, it then creates a chain reaction to the next to also engage in movement.

Spiraling Into Action

The cochlea is a spiral-shaped organelle that contains fluids. When the sound you hear enters this organelle, it creates a movement within the fluid it holds. The basilar membrane is now in charge. This contains hair cells that act as sensors for sound. They encompass components called stereocilia which move back and forth to the vibration of the sound. This goes to the auditory nerve then to the brain for your brain to interpret as sounds that we then register and "hear".