Understand the science of hearing and how humans and other mammals perceive sound
Understand the science of hearing and how humans and other mammals perceive sound
How humans and other mammals perceive sound.
© World Science Festival (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
EDDIE GOLDSTEIN: When a sound is produced, it causes a vibration. And that pushes against the air. So you get a high-pressure zone where that air squeezes up, and then a lower pressure zone. Every time that vibration happens, you get high pressure, high pressure, high pressure, high pressure, high pressure.
So imagine a bunch of high pressure zones all the way across the stage, and those high-pressure zones are moving like that. When they get to your ear drum, they hit your ear drum and that causes your eardrum to vibrate. Then when your ear drum vibrates, it causes three little bones in your ear to vibrate, because they're touching your ear drum.
And those bones actually magnify the vibration until they reach the cochlea. That is an actual photograph of a cochlea inside your inner ear. All those little black, what look like hairs, are nerve cells, and they respond to the different frequencies of sound.
Here's the interesting thing. They respond to different frequencies. The ones near the front are the highest pitch, to 20,000 Hertz. And as you go deeper and deeper and deeper inside the cochlea, they respond to lower and lower and lower frequencies.
So if you hear loud sounds, or if you, as you age, it's those ones that are the high-pitch ones that get damaged first or tired out. And so that's why a lot of people, as you get older, or if you listen to a lot of loud music with ear buds, that kind of thing, you can damage, especially that high-frequency sounds. Here's the cool part.
A lot of animals can hear outside of the zone that humans can hear. Dogs can hear 44,000 Hertz, 44,000 times per second. And so they make dog whistles that humans can't hear but dogs are able to hear.
On the other end of the spectrum, elephants can hear down to 17 Hertz, way below human hearing. And this is the coolest thing. They can communicate like a mile away, and scientists didn't know why for a long time until they started listening for those low-frequency sounds. And believe it or not, the elephant makes the sound. It travels through the ground, and a mile away, the other elephant can actually feel that sound and hear that sound through its legs.
ALAN ALDA: They hear with their feet?
GOLDSTEIN: They hear with-- well, it comes through. You know what, when you think about it, people who are hearing impaired, a lot of times go to discos, and they feel the rhythms through their feet. So that is not unheard of.
ALDA: Yeah.
GOLDSTEIN: His puns are better than mine. I have to just say. I just have to say.
The other one I wanted to tell you about is there are some very large whales that can hear down to one cycle per second, one Hertz. They can communicate with other whales that are hundreds of miles away through the water. It's absolutely amazing.
So imagine a bunch of high pressure zones all the way across the stage, and those high-pressure zones are moving like that. When they get to your ear drum, they hit your ear drum and that causes your eardrum to vibrate. Then when your ear drum vibrates, it causes three little bones in your ear to vibrate, because they're touching your ear drum.
And those bones actually magnify the vibration until they reach the cochlea. That is an actual photograph of a cochlea inside your inner ear. All those little black, what look like hairs, are nerve cells, and they respond to the different frequencies of sound.
Here's the interesting thing. They respond to different frequencies. The ones near the front are the highest pitch, to 20,000 Hertz. And as you go deeper and deeper and deeper inside the cochlea, they respond to lower and lower and lower frequencies.
So if you hear loud sounds, or if you, as you age, it's those ones that are the high-pitch ones that get damaged first or tired out. And so that's why a lot of people, as you get older, or if you listen to a lot of loud music with ear buds, that kind of thing, you can damage, especially that high-frequency sounds. Here's the cool part.
A lot of animals can hear outside of the zone that humans can hear. Dogs can hear 44,000 Hertz, 44,000 times per second. And so they make dog whistles that humans can't hear but dogs are able to hear.
On the other end of the spectrum, elephants can hear down to 17 Hertz, way below human hearing. And this is the coolest thing. They can communicate like a mile away, and scientists didn't know why for a long time until they started listening for those low-frequency sounds. And believe it or not, the elephant makes the sound. It travels through the ground, and a mile away, the other elephant can actually feel that sound and hear that sound through its legs.
ALAN ALDA: They hear with their feet?
GOLDSTEIN: They hear with-- well, it comes through. You know what, when you think about it, people who are hearing impaired, a lot of times go to discos, and they feel the rhythms through their feet. So that is not unheard of.
ALDA: Yeah.
GOLDSTEIN: His puns are better than mine. I have to just say. I just have to say.
The other one I wanted to tell you about is there are some very large whales that can hear down to one cycle per second, one Hertz. They can communicate with other whales that are hundreds of miles away through the water. It's absolutely amazing.