Discovery Helps Explain How We Hear Whispers

[Snowden]

Discovery Helps Explain How We Hear Whispers

By Tuan C. Nguyen, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 12 October 2007 01:27 pm ET





The inner ear. MIT researchers have found a new mechanism that could help the ear distinguish low sounds such as whispers. Credit: National Institutes of Health


Researchers have found a tiny mechanism deep inside the ear that likely helps us hear whispers. The finding could eventually help companies design better hearing aids and other devices for restoring hearing.
Scientists probed the cochlea, a part of the inner ear where physical sound is translated into electrical signals for the brain.

Inside this coiled tube, sound waves glide along a thin membrane, known as the basilar membrane, causing hair-like fibers on the membrane to vibrate at different frequencies. Once stimulated, the fibers shoot out electrical pulses that the brain uses to determine the pitch of the sound.
Hovering right above all of this is the tectorial membrane, along which a different kind of sound wave travels, the scientists discovered. This wave—which bounces from side to side—can excite the hair cells and also enhance their sensitivity, which MIT researcher Roozbeh Ghaffari said may help explain how we can pick up on sounds that are as quiet as a whisper.




MIT Professor Dennis Freeman, left, graduate student Roozbeh Ghaffari and research scientist Alexander J. Aranyosi have found that the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure inside the cochlea of the ear, is much more important to hearing than previously thought. Credit: MIT/Donna Coveney


This finding, Ghaffari said, has major implications for our understanding of how hearing works and potentially for hearing devices currently on the market.

“Most hearing aids we have now are terrible in that they just amplify and blast everything,” Ghaffari said. “Our ears are smarter than that and know tricks that help us distinguish sounds. Having a better model for cochlear mechanics can lead to improved hearing aids and cochlear implants.”

http://www.livescience.com/health/071012-hearing-mechanism.html

[Scrappy]

Well anything to get women whispering with their hot breath in my ear. Sounds great.