2.02 - The Sensory Organ of Hearing

This chapter describes the sensory organ and processes by which hearing occurs. Sound travels through the external ear canal and the middle ear to the cochlea, a snail like structure in the temporal bone, and vibrates the delicate soft tissue structures of the cochlea. The acoustic signals are then separated into small frequency bands, each of which vibrates a particular portion of the cochlea and creates a frequency-place representation. Specialized cells, the hair cells, sense and transform the vibration into a sequence of electrical pulses, which travel along the auditory nerve to the brain and ultimately result in an auditory percept, such as speech or music.