Sound Waves and How Hearing Loss Affects Our Perception of Them

Hearing loss is a condition that affects a lot of people, young and old alike. However, for a lot of people, the actual mechanics of how it works might be more mysterious. You might have some idea that it has something to do with how your ears pick up and transmit sound waves, but what is actually happening when you experience hearing loss?

Your hearing instrument specialist is here to help answer any questions and provide what help they can when it comes to managing and addressing hearing loss. But for now, we’re going to look at the mechanics of sound waves and how hearing loss can alter your perception of them.

What Are Sound Waves?

There’s a very physical component to hearing. Though we can’t see them, sound is transmitted through the air as sound waves. The air effectively vibrates, transferring across space as a form of energy being given off. The more energy transferred, the louder the sound tends to be.

These sound waves move through the air (or are rather transmitted through the air) and can even be transmitted through solid objects, which is why you can often hear sounds such as the knocking of a door but not as clearly as if you were standing on the other side of it.

How We Process Sound Waves

The process of hearing is effectively a tale of two different parts of the body. This starts with the ear. The outer ear is effectively an acoustic shell that reshapes the noise that we hear. The sound goes through this shell where it reaches the eardrum in our inner ear. When sound waves hit the eardrum, it vibrates. The vibrations act against several bones, which transmit the sound to the inner ear. Little hair cells in the ear pick up the amplified noises from these bones, turning them into electric signals. These signals are sent to the brain.

The brain picks up these electric signals communicated by the ear and then transmits them into our sense of hearing. So, rather than directly hearing the airwaves hitting your ear, you are hearing your ear translate external sound into electric signals, and then your brain translates these electric signals into our sense of hearing. Of course, this all happens so instantaneously that you’re not going to be able to feel the individual processes of what is happening.

How Hearing Loss Affects Our Perception of Sound Waves

There are multiple different types of hearing loss, but their impact all falls under the same category: something is getting in the way of your body’s ability to process sound waves from the outside world.

There are multiple ways this can happen. With conductive hearing loss, the process is interrupted usually due to some obstruction in the ear, whether it’s earwax, swelling, or fluid from an infection. The sound can’t hit the eardrum as effectively as should because of the obstruction, or the obstruction might put pressure on the eardrum itself so it can’t vibrate as it should. As such, the hair cells don’t get the signals that they should.

Another type of hearing loss is sensorineural hearing loss. This is the most common kind of permanent hearing loss and happens when the tiny hair cells that pick up the signal from the middle ear and transmit them into electrical signals start to malfunction. This typically happens due to excess exposure to loud noise or as a result of aging. When this happens, the brain isn’t going to receive the signals it should because the hair cells aren’t translating them as they should.

Head trauma, brain damage, tumors and offer health issues affecting the brain can also impact your sense of hearing, too; especially if they affect the part of the brain that is responsible for translating the signals from the inner ear. Because of this, the mechanics of hearing loss and how it affects our perception of sound waves can differ from case to case.

Combat Hearing Loss Today with Our Help

If you suspect (or know) that you have hearing loss and it’s not being appropriately treated the way it should be, then you should get in touch with a hearing instrument specialist. At Audio Hearing Aid Service, we can provide hearing tests to get to the bottom of it and then recommend and help you fit the best devices to treat it. Get in touch with our team today 330-244-9881 or 330-364-6637 or look through the site to see how we can help.