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Ear

            The ear is an organ of the body that is used for hearing and balance. It is connected to the brain by the auditory nerve and is composed of three divisions, the external ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The greater part of which is enclosed within the temporal bone.
             The ear is looked upon as a miniature receiver, amplifier and signal-processing system. The structure of the outer ear catching sound waves as they move into the external auditory canal. The sound waves then hit the eardrum and the pressure of the air causes the drum to vibrate back and forth. When the eardrum vibrates its neighbour the malleus then vibrates too. The vibrations are then transmitted from the malleus to the incus and then to the stapes. Together the three bones increase the pressure which in turn pushes the membrane of the oval window in and out. This movement sets up fluid pressure waves in the perilymph of the cochlea. The bulging of the oval window then pushes on the perilymph of the scala vestibuli. From here the pressure waves are transmitted from the scala vestibuli to the scala tympani and then eventually finds its way to the round window. This causes the round window to bulge outward into the middle ear. The scala vestibuli and scala tympani walls are now deformed with the pressure waves and the vestibular membrane is also pushed back and forth creating pressure waves in the endolymph inside the cochlear duct. These waves then causes the membrane to vibrate, which in turn cause the hairs cells of the spiral organ to move against the tectorial membrane. The bending of the stereo cilia produces receptor potentials that in the end lead to the generation of nerve impulses.
             The External or Outer Ear - comprises of the auricle or pinna which is the fleshy part of the outer ear. It is cup-shaped and collects and amplifies sound waves which then passes along the ear canal to the ear drum or tympanic membrane.


Essays Related to Ear

1. The Bionic Ear

... helps detect the direction of sound. The soundwave then travels through the ear canal and interrelates with eardrum. Once in the ear canal the tympani membrane (eardrum) vibrates. The eardrum is located between the middle ear and ear canal. The middle ear connects to the throat through the Eustachian tube. This allows air to ... Higher pitch sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate at a faster rate. Louder sound moves the drum a further distance back. The next part of the ear is the ossicles (comprises of malleus, incus, stapes) When the eardrum vibrates it moves there malleus from side...

  • Word Count: 1095
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Ménière's Disease and the Inner Ear

... Meniere's disease is named after a French physician, Prosper Meinere, who reported in an article published in 1861, that vertigo was caused by inner ear disorders. Attacks of vertigo may come suddenly or after a short period of tinnitus or muffled hearing. Patients with Ménière's disease ... when patients are not having attacks. The periodic dilation and shrinkage of the utricle is also a reasonable explanation for periodic attacks of another inner ear disorder such as BPPV. In addition, it can be possible to have a rupture to the membranous labyrinth. This might create some mechanica...

  • Word Count: 1725
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

3. Human Ear And Tinbre

... amongst the scientific was restabilised at a greater point then before. Almost 300 years later then earlier discoveries Domenico Cotugno would find that, in contrast to the air filled middle ear, the inner ear is fluid-filled. A century later Ernst Reissner described the presence of two distinct fluid compartments in the cochlea. Improvements in microscopic methods during the 19th century led to Alfonso ... need only realise that middle C differs from C sharp (the black piano key immediately to its right of C) by more than 5%. Intensity is how closely the particles are compacted' togeth...

  • Word Count: 830
  • Approx Pages: 3

4. Earbuds in My Ear

As we make our way to the biggest rivalry in town, I lie here on this torn wrinkly brown leather, with ear buds in my ear, my Letterman jacket just under my head, like a mothers arm holding her baby, and the words you've thrown at me really strike me. "You missed out on a lot ... all that, I had university scouts looking to recruit me from all over North America and I still had one more year of high school left. All of sudden, my ear buds fall out of my ear. I feel this warm soft skin against my shins, making me shoot up quickly. "Let's go Lions!" Screaming voices of passionate athletes and ...

  • Word Count: 1093
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Tinnitus

... tinnitus and a hearing loss are experienced simultaneously, it is highly likely that exposure to excessively loud noise is the cause. Although OSHA provides regulations and requires the use of ear plugs in certain working environments, it is important to remember that dangerous noise levels can occur in everyday recreation activities. The auditory system is not discriminating between the different ... auditory system. (Caster, 2000) Anti-histamines are recommended because they contain mild sedatives that ease anxiety. They also act to reduce mucous accumulation, which in turn allows the...

  • Word Count: 3300
  • Approx Pages: 13
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Tinnitus

... tinnitus and a hearing loss are experienced simultaneously, it is highly likely that exposure to excessively loud noise is the cause. Although OSHA provides regulations and requires the use of ear plugs in certain working environments, it is important to remember that dangerous noise levels can occur in everyday recreation activities. The auditory system is not discriminating between the different ... auditory system. (Caster, 2000) Anti-histamines are recommended because they contain mild sedatives that ease anxiety. They also act to reduce mucous accumulation, which in turn allows the...

  • Word Count: 3300
  • Approx Pages: 13
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Hearing Losses

... specs. The mechanisms of the hearing system are remarkable in their ability to sense oscillations so different in scale. The mechanical structure of the ear is a chain of transducers (energy converters) which convey the oscillations of the air to the sensors of the nervous system for data gathering ... sampling frequency required to convert analog signals to digital signals must be at least twice the highest frequency of interest. In the case of the ear, because the sampling rate of our nervous system is approximately 2KHz (slow, because of the nerves" electrochemical transmission medi...

  • Word Count: 2665
  • Approx Pages: 11

8. Cognitive Psychology - Dichotic Listening Experiments

... this model the brain has a certain criteria for filtering information and this is based on the physical properties of the sensory information, for instance voice (who is speaking), location (which ear is the information being spoken in). According to Broadbent the meaning of the messages is not taken into account by the filter until after the message has been selected. Furthermore ... research on auditory laterality, using a variation of the dichotic listening technique. In particular, simple speech sounds consisting of pairs of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables are presented simultaneousl...

  • Word Count: 1996
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

9. Sound Waves

... . Just oppositely, a frequency that is too high is called an ultrasound wave. These waves are anything above about 20,000 Hz. The human ear can detect any frequency between 20 and 20,000 Hz, but there are some animals that can hear lower and higher frequencies. For example, an ... would have a greater intensity. A very important key to the perception of sound waves and their frequencies is the human ear. There are three parts to the ear: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. All three of these "stations" work together in a process that translates wave frequencies into somethin...

  • Word Count: 1797
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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