Hearing (Sense)

For 'hearing' in the sense of a court proceeding, see Hearing.

Hearing or audition is a bodily sense to perceive sound, provided by the ears and the associated internal organs in each ear, notably the Cochlea, the Organ of Corti and hair cells which receive sound and convert it to nerve impulses which are interpreted by the brain.

Loss or absence of the sense of hearing is known as deafness.

In some ways, hearing can be thought of as a special case of touch, or vice versa, as sound and vibrations felt by the skin are in a similar band of frequencies. Ears can generally hear across the frequency range of about 200 to 10,000 Hertz when we are young, with the extremes of this range moving inwards as we age.

Hearing is also possible through bone conduction, where sounds are transmitted through the skull to the auditory organs. Examples of this are while a person is underwater or when the head is brought into contact with a musical instrument (for example, a violin player hears the instrument both through the ears directly and by bone conduction through the jaw to the skull.)