Hearing+P2-+Meaghan,+Jane,+Julie,+Ali

media type="custom" key="11600346" **SCRIPT: **  1. Something that produces stimulation or reaction of the ear is attributed to vibration. The auditory stimuli is created by objects such as a human speaking, music, dogs barking etc. These objects produce changes in pressure in some elastic medium (typically air) and are ultimately trasduced by the hair cells in the inner ear. The sound-producing object often causes the molecules in the elastic medium to become more or less dense causing the translation of sound.

2. When a noise is made vibrations are sent through the air and are funneled into the ear canal by the outer ear. The vibrations then travel into the middle ear and hit the eardrum, causing it to vibrate. There is a chain reaction of vibrations. The eardrum then vibrates three different bones in the body. These bones include the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup. The stirrup then passes vibrations to the cochlea which is located in the inner ear. The cochlea contains 1,000 hair- life nerve endings called cicilia. Cicilia change the vibrations into messages that are sent to the brain via the auditory nerve. This nerve carries the messages from 25,000 receptors in the ear to the brain. The brain then makes sense of these noises or sounds.  3. The absolute threshold for hearing is the least amount of sound that a human can detect. For humans, the absolute threshold is the sound of wrist watch ticking from twenty feet away. The absolute threshold differs, however, from person to person. Also it changes between different animals. Dogs for example, have the ability to pick up on much higher ranges of sounds than humans.  4. For many obvious reasons, hearing is crucial for the survival of many species. Hearing allows one to remain alert and aware of their surroundings, in addition to working with the other senses. Hearing is often times the first sense to detect anything, you hear something and therefore adjust to see or react to what you have heard through the use of other senses. Also, for many species mating rituals involve some form of mating call or sound. Therefore the ability to hear these calls are crucial to the reproduction and existence. Finally, hearing provides animals and humans with the ability to determine the location and distance of something.

 5. There are many interesting facts regarding the sense of hearing and the way the ear functions. For instance, dolphins can hear up to 14 times better than human beings, as they have the best hearing out of all the animals. In general, animals have better hearing than humans. They can hear high pitched noises very easily. In addition, children and younger people have more sensitive hearing, therefore they can pick up sound from farther distances than adults. Also, it is important to understand the cause of earaches. When too much fluid is built up in the eardrum, it applies and extensive amount of pressure that is painful to the ear. These earaches can be symptoms of a virus or infection that is present in the body at the time.