The hearing chain - our perception of sound is made up of individual elements that each form links in a chain

Hearing involves an elaborate partnership between our brains, our ears and the outside world. Each of these individual elements act like links in a chain. So the overall effectiveness of our hearing depends on the strength of each of those links.

To maximise our own hearing and listening potential we always want to be sure there are no weak links in our own hearing chain. The simplest and most effective way to do this is with routine checks ups by your audivisor.

As you look at the different links shown below, notice how some depend more on some links than others? For example, our ears act as a bridge between the outside world and our brains. Without this crucial link to make the sound accessible in the first place, many of our hearing skills would be useless.

Notice too that some of the links can be stengthened more easily to improve our overall audicity? For example, we can adjust the environment by reducing the distance between ourselves and the sound we want to hear. Or we can utilise superior hearing technology to enhance speech and reduce interference from noise.

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  • Brain
  • Ear
  • Environment
  • Nerves
  • Noise
  • Signal
  • Skills
  • Technology
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  • The quality of the sound we are listening to

    The quality of the sound we are listening to

    The original sound source has to be clear and free from distortion, otherwise the poor quality will be passed on up the hearing chain.
    • Environment
    • Signal
  • The distance between the sound and ourselves

    The distance between the sound and ourselves

    The further away something is from us, the quieter it becomes, and the less information reaches our ears. Listening over a distance will always be harder.
    • Environment
    • Signal
  • Any interference from the environment

    Any interference from the environment

    Interference can come from echoes, other things getting in the way and other sounds which can jumble the original sound or mask parts of it.
    • Environment
    • Noise
  • The effectiveness of any technology we are using

    The effectiveness of any technology we are using

    Hearing technology acts as a filter. Some parts to pass through the system untouched, whilst enhancing, suppressing or distorting others.
    • Noise
    • Signal
    • Technology
  • The effectiveness of our outer ear

    The effectiveness of our outer ear

    Both ears collect sound and funnel it towards the inner ears, using its unique contours to boost certain frequencies to enhance speech and give us valuable information about where a sound has come from.
    • Ear
  • The efficiency of our middle ear

    The efficiency of our middle ear

    The middle ear houses the eardrum, the hammer, anvil and stirrup, and the eustachian tube. Like any precision system each part separately contributes to the overall performance.
    • Ear
  • The acuity of our inner ear

    The acuity of our inner ear

    The inner ears contain thousands of delicately tuned hearing cells, which turn the continuous stream of sound vibrations into meaningful messages that the brain can work with.
    • Ear
    • Nerves
  • The integrity of the hearing nerves

    The integrity of the hearing nerves

    The hearing nerves are the highways between the ears and the brain, with traffic going both ways. Along the way the sound interacts with information from others areas, such as vision, emotion and the neck.
    • Nerves
  • The health and connectedness of the brain

    The health and connectedness of the brain

    The ultimate purpose of hearing is to get acoustic information into the brain. What happens once we get it there will be the result of our unique connectome and will depend on the strength and speed of the interconnections across the different brain areas.
    • Brain
    • Nerves
  • Our ability to detect sounds in the environment

    Our ability to detect sounds in the environment

    No matter how good our brain is at working with sound, we still have to get the sound to reach it in the first place! If our hearing is unable to detect a particular sound, our brain can't work with it. So hearing needs to first accurately capture and encode a sound.
    • Brain
    • Ear
    • Nerves
  • Our hearing range and sensitivity to loud sounds

    Our hearing range and sensitivity to loud sounds

    Imagine your living room, with space to put all your furniture so each item is distinct and not crowding another. Now imagine putting the same furniture into a much smaller room with a lower ceiling. That’s what it’s like when our hearing range is reduced.
    • Brain
    • Ear
    • Nerves
  • Our ability to separate sound into distinct objects

    Our ability to separate sound into distinct objects

    We combine all the information we pick up from the sounds around us to build a mental map of separate sound objects. We use this so we can choose what to tune into and what to ignore, and to know what’s important or relevant and what’s not.
    • Brain
    • Ear
    • Skills
  • Our ability to locate and track the source of sound

    Our ability to locate and track the source of sound

    Sound can come to us from any direction: front, back, left, right, above, below – and anywhere in between. When we know the direction of a sound we can direct our attention to it without even looking and suppress sounds coming from elsewhere.
    • Brain
    • Nerves
    • Skills
  • Our ability to focus on desired sound and exclude others

    Our ability to focus on desired sound and exclude others

    Our attention is a bit like a spotlight that can be pointed at what we want to concentrate on. When we focus our attention on something, our brain boosts the signal we’re attending to and dampens awareness of other things.
    • Brain
    • Skills
  • Our ability to remember and join recent sounds

    Our ability to remember and join recent sounds

    To understand a conversation or enjoy a piece of music or "fill in the gaps" when there's interference from noise, we need to be able remember what we’ve already recently heard to give us context for whatever comes next.
    • Brain
    • Skills
  • Our ability to pull up relevant information from memory

    Our ability to pull up relevant information from memory

    Once we’ve identified a sound we need to know what that sound means—for us. We must turn speech sounds into words, then relate those words to their meanings to make sense. We can then work out how it might be relevant to us.
    • Brain
    • Skills
  • Our ability to assemble sound into meaning

    Our ability to assemble sound into meaning

    To know what’s important and what’s not, we need to turn the sounds we hear into something meaningful. It’s true for speech, but it’s also true for our ability to identify what a sound is when we’ve encountered it before, and to recognise things that are new.
    • Brain
    • Skills
  • Our ability to filter out sounds unhelpful to our goals

    Our ability to filter out sounds unhelpful to our goals

    The amount of sound that surrounds us could very easily become overwhelming, confusing and tiring if we didn’t have the ability to filter out some of the “noise”. Noise may be the person speaking to us on the table next to us, or road noise in the car.
    • Brain
    • Noise
    • Skills
  • Our ‘ability’ to listen and apply what we've heard

    Our ‘ability’ to listen and apply what we've heard

    Once we have the sound in a form we can use, we can then bring the full weight of our personality to it and choose what we do with that information – social interaction, decision making, taking advantage of opportunities, turning sound into learning.
    • Brain
    • Environment
    • Skills