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How Hearing Works

Your ears are complex organs that are responsible for hearing, as well as spatial location and balance. Hearing keeps you safe when you’re driving to work or playing with your grandchildren in the park, and it allows you to have intimate conversations with the people you love the most. When all parts of the ear work together, you’ll have clear hearing, but when the ear is damaged, you’ll experience hearing loss. So how exactly does the ear work?
The auditory system is extremely complex, and the journey that carries sound waves to your brain is intricate. First, the outer ear channels the sound waves around you towards the middle ear, and acts as a natural amplifier to help you hear and locate all the sounds around you.
Next, the sound waves vibrate against the ear drum, or middle ear, causing three little bones in the middle ear to vibrate. This vibration causes movement in the fluid-filled inner ear, called the cochlea. As this fluid moves, tiny hair cells in the inner ear also move. These cells translate this movement into electrical signals, and send those signals to the brain, where the auditory center in your brain translates these signals so that you can hear.
Hearing Loss FAQs
Taking a Closer Look at the Ears
Hearing Loss in the Inner Ear
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