All About Ears & Hearing
Latest Hearing News
- LACE July 19, 2011
- Loud headphones 'damage ability to discriminate sounds' March 16, 2011
- Hearing aids 'significantly improve quality of life' February 25, 2011
- Audiology: brain is 'wired so we can hear ourselves... December 10, 2010
- 10 things you didn't know about sound November 15, 2010
As one of your five senses, how important is your hearing?
Your hearing connects you to the wider world, even if you are not participating in a conversation, if you are aware it is happening you are involved. Hearing helps you gather information, form opinions, make arrangements, engage with people and be in tune with your surroundings and wider environment.
The hearing organ is a complex and delicate instrument that has to cope with whatever is “thrown at it”. From the tiniest whimper to a jet engine, our hearing system has to process, decipher and interpret a myriad of incoming signals.
As human beings our hearing organ has evolved to best cope with human communication. With two ears conveniently placed on the side of our head, a delicately developed outer ear designed to collect and enhance speech, an automatic built-in reflex to protect your hearing, as much as possible from loud noise and a hearing range targeted at speech frequencies, a truly remarkable system. As with all complex processes - when working well, we don’t even notice it, let alone marvel at it’s achievements, it is only when things start to go wrong that we have a deeper appreciation of it and its amazing function.
