Essay #5 – Hearing
Dan Burkhardt
Professor Harrison
College Writing – 101
1 November 2008
Audio Translation and Perception
The sense of hearing is a unique and curious ability that organisms possess. While there are five major senses known to man, only one of them is mechanical in nature. The sense of hearing is made possible by a drum like membrane and tiny bones deep within the ear that vibrate when struck by molecules that shake with the variations in atmospheric pressure. “An analogy of how sound waves travel can be demonstrated by dropping a stone into a pool of still water”. The waves will travel from the source of the disturbance in the water and radiate outward. “Likewise, sound pressure waves are generated by a vibrating body that’s in contact with air (such as a loudspeaker, a person’s vocal chords, or a guitar string that vibrates the body of an instrument)”<!–[if supportFields]> CITATION Hub97 \p 23-24 \l 1033 <![endif]–> (Huber and Runstein 23-24)<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>. The inner ear then translates these vibrations into electrical nerve impulses which travel to the brain for interpretation.
The higher frequencies of sound the ear is exposed to, the higher the pitch that the brain will interpret as a sound signal. In situations this can be a harmful and damaging effect. There is a function that allows the brain to control the level of sound translated to the brain, at least for lower frequencies. “When the brain receives a signal that indicates this sort of noise, a reflex occurs at the eardrum. The tensor tympani muscle and the stapedius muscle suddenly contract. This pulls the eardrum and the connected bones in two different directions, so the drum becomes more rigid. When this happens, the ear does not pick up as much noise at the low end of the audible spectrum, so the loud noise is dampened” <!–[if supportFields]> CITATION Tom01 \l 1033 <![endif]–>(Harris)<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>. This reaction protects the hearing function while allowing higher frequencies to pass through for interpretation. While the nervous process of translating sound into to impulses is not fully understood, it is known that tiny cells called “hair cells” in the deepest part of hearing system vibrate and make electrical impulses travel along the Auditory nerve which feeds these signals into the cerebral cortex of the brain for interpretation.
The sensation of sound can tell very specific information about the environment around an individual. The refraction of sounds can tell the difference between a sound that is close by and a sound that is far away. The pitch of a sound differentiates between a voice and a mechanical noise and can tell an individual whether a voice is male or female. The sense of hearing has become one of the most easily manipulated senses with the creation of music and the invention of the personal computer. Computer programs have been developed to create the likeness of drums, voices, keyboards and countless other instruments, but many of these programs give the user the ability to place effects on sounds that can make them appear far away or delayed etc. Effects trick the mind into thinking there is a physical depth to the sound it is interpreting and are widely used in the production process of making music.
There is a downside to the process of hearing that causes many people to believe they hear sound that is not actually present outside of the body. There are the normal mistakes that people make while walking through a crowd; they may hear a combination of sounds which may resemble someone calling their name or even a familiar piece of music they may like, however, they quickly realize that it is not there at all. This is a normal occurrence which is just a result of the natural tendency to constantly analyze one’s surroundings. There is a more serious form of auditory disturbance which afflicts many people around the world who hear more complex sounds of voices, static or even running dialogue about one’s thoughts.
It is known that “auditory hallucinations or “hearing voices’ is a condition that affects 70% of patients with schizophrenia and 15% of patients with mood disorders such as mania or depression. For these individuals, instead of hearing just one’s name, voices produce a stream of speech, often vulgar or derogatory”. The sounds these individuals hear are not produced outside of the body and may be confusing or even debilitating. The normal process of rationalization is completely discarded when an individual is constantly harassed by voices of people telling them to do things or that ridicule every thought they have. Often people listen to these voices and commit horrific crimes or even suicide. “Brain imaging studies have found that parts of the temporal lobe activate during these hallucinations. Research at Yale University, as well as studies conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, also detected activation in an area of the brain known as Broca’s region during production of “inner speech” or verbal thought” <!–[if supportFields]> CITATION Ral03 \l 1033 <![endif]–>(Hoffman)<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>.
Though treatment for such illness is limited, research “has spawned at least one promising new treatment: the delivery of low-frequency magnetic pulses to areas identified by the brain scans seems to quiet, at least temporarily, the voices of patients who have not found relief through standard treatment with antipsychotic medications” <!–[if supportFields]> CITATION Eri03 \l 1033 <![endif]–>(Goode)<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>. It is believed that this treatment works by limiting the ability of the ‘internal thought’ portions of the brain to transmit messages. In a healthy adult, the ability to think internally is differentiated from the outside world and is made distinctly under the control of the individual. There is no such differentiation in a person who suffers from hallucinations and without treatment the effects can result in terrible consequences, even death.
It is interesting that the sense of hearing is one that, when defined under normal circumstances, is a direct translation of the vibrations in the world around us, however, the most important part of the hearing experience lies in the brain of the individual interpreting the sound. In this regard, the sense of sound is like any other even though it is at first mechanical. Sound is all about perception, whether it is manmade and digitally edited to sound like an orchestra in a concert hall or if it is an auditory fallacy which presents itself to the mind as if it were external. Not all translations of sound are correct and similarly, not all perceptions of sound are true translations. The more we understand about this sense, however, the better we will understand the way we think.
Goals
My goal for this paper is to explore the physical components of hearing and attempt to help the reader understand the complexity of the sense. I would then like to talk a little bit about the process by which sound is understood by the brain and translated into meaningful information. I would also like to explore some auditory phenomenon such as hallucinations and non-psychotic hearing impairments. In the end I would like to draw a conclusion that the sense of hearing is complex but that the most important part of it is almost the same as all of the others in that it requires the brain to interpret nerve signals. My audience is going to be an individual who would like to have a general overview of how the auditory system works as well as some of the various anomalies related to it, possibly a psychology student. The genre I will choose is going to be an informative one because I would like structure this writing as if were a short research paper.
I have achieved my goals because I structured it in a way that is consistent with research writing and I hit all of the main points in my out line. I talked about the physical process of hearing and how it translates sound in the brain as well as describing the issues that can occur like hallucinations.
Focus Question
Did the paper create an interest that held you attention the whole time?
Works Cited
<!–[if supportFields]> BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 <![endif]–>Goode, Erica. New Research on Treating Voices. 6 May 2003. 8 November 2008 <http://www.namiscc.org/Research/2003/TreatingVoices.htm>.
Harris, Tom. How Hearing works. 30 March 2001. 8 November 2008 <http://health.howstuffworks.com/hearing2.htm>.
Hoffman, Ralph. Auditory Hallucinations . 27 September 2003. 8 November 2008 <http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/thought_disorders/schizo/articles/hearing_voices.htm>.
“Sound and Hearing.” Huber, David Miles and Robert E. Runstein. Modern Recording Techniques. 5th Edition. New York: Focal Press, 1997. 23-24.
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