What Happens When We Hear?

What happens when we hear? Where does the sound go when it enters our ears? Our ears sense the vibrations of the air and convert them into electrical signals the brain can process. But that is only the start. The brain uses tens of thousands of nerve cells to hear even the quietest or simplest sound. With those nerve cells, the brain is solving a never-ending puzzle: figuring out what is going on in the world. To do that, the brain must separate out sounds that are occurring at the same time, recognize them, and describe them in lots of ways, such as how loud a sound is and where it is coming from. This article gives an overview of how the ears and brain work together, so we can live in a world of sound.