How do we hear?

The Hearing Process

Here’s a brief video about how the ear works — sounds occur, travel through the anatomy of the ear, and get processed by our brain.

1

Sound waves enter your outer ear and travel through the ear canal to your eardrum.
2

Your eardrum vibrates with the incoming sound and sends the vibrations to three tiny bones in your middle ear.
3

The bones in your middle ear amplify the sound vibrations and send them to your inner ear, or cochlea. The sound vibrations activate tiny hair cells in the inner ear, which in turn release neurochemical messengers.
4

Your auditory nerve carries this electrical signal to the brain, which translates it into a sound you can understand.