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Date : 08 Aug18
 INTRODUCTION

 Sound waves – longitudinal waves

 Each particle of med in which wave travels – moves

back and forth along a line – in dirn in which wave
travels

 Human aural sys reacts to these oscillations – transmit

them to brain

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 ORGAN OF HEARING
The human ear consists of three sections: the
outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.

The outer ear:-

The most visible part - ‘pinna’ or ‘auricle’
Visible part of the ear that is attached to the side
of the head, and the waxy, dirt-trapping auditory
canal. Scatters the sound waves into the ear-
canal which leads to the ear-drum.

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 ORGAN OF HEARING
The middle ear :-
Part immediately behind the ear-drum and
normally contains air.
The tympanic membrane (eardrum) separates
the external ear from the middle ear
Bridging this cavity are three small bones the
malleus (hammer), the incus (anvil), and the
stapes (stirrup).
Air in the middle ear, is in communication with
the nose through a small tube which opens and
closes when swallowing, yawning, blowing the
nose ‘eustachian tube’

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 ORGAN OF HEARING

THE INNER EAR:-

 The inner ear contains a very complicated

mechanism.

 The cochlea and semicircular fluid filled canals in

temporal bone make up the inner ear .

 Divided lengthwise by small thin membrane

(basilar- membrane).

 Membrane contains 16,000 tiny nerve-ends

called haircells / receptor cells.

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Date : 08 Aug18
 ORGAN OF HEARING
These are starting points of the auditory nerve.

Sound vibration passes on to the fluids by the vibration of

the stapes-bone in the oval window.

Basilar membrane begins to vibrate, agitating the hair-

cells.

The hair cell generate electrical impulses which reach to the

brain via auditory nerve (100 m/sec).

It is in the brain that we are made aware of sound.

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 ORGAN OF HEARING

 Basilar membrane has different resonating

properties along the length

 High frequency response at stapes

 Low freq response at its upper end

 Appreciation of sound – cerebral fn

 Notes recognised by – cochlea

 If defective – certain notes may not be heard

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 ORGAN OF HEARING
 Pattern of impulses arriving at brain

– Loudness – depends on amplitude of sound waves

– Pitch – frquency

– Timbre (quality) – combination and interactions of

waves

 Human ear responds to freq – 20 to 20,000 hz

 Speech – complex wave of many freq of vibration

Human ear distinguish 400,000 different sounds

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 ORGAN OF HEARING

HEARING RANGE IN ANIMALS

Many animals hear a much wider range of frequencies than

human beings do. For example, dog whistles vibrate at a
higher frequency than the human ear can detect, while
evidence suggests that dolphins and whales communicate at
frequencies beyond human hearing (ultrasound). Frequency
is measured in hertz, or the number of sound waves a
vibrating object gives off per second. The more the object
vibrates, the higher the frequency and the higher the pitch of
the resulting sound.
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Date : 08 Aug18
 TYPES OF HEARING LOSSES
Conductive losses
Hearing loss caused by defects in the outer and middle
ear are called “conductive losses”. This is because of
inability of the defective ear to conduct sounds to the
auditory nerve(hearing nerve)

Nerve or perceptive losses

Hearing loss caused by the defects in the inner ear or the
hair-cells or the auditory nerve are called nerve losses or
perceptive losses. The correct modern name for such
losses is “sensory neural”

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 INSTRUMENTS USED IN
TESTING OF EAR
 Otoscope- for viewing the external auditory canal and
the tympanic membrane.

 X-ray machine- to examine and study the mastiod middle

and inner ear.

 Audiometer- for measuring the actual hearing losses of

either of the ears.

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 AUDIOMETRY

 Audiometry is the technique of measurement of

hearing in which the actual hearing losses are
measured.

 In measurement of hearing a series of pure tones

are presented to the patients sensory- neural
mechanism either directly by phones into the ear
canal or by a bone vibrator placed over the
temporal bone.

 The approach is to determine first hearing losses

or defects and second actual loss in sound level at
different frequencies with in the frequency range.
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Date : 08 Aug18
 METHODS OF AUDIOMETRY TESTS

Air conduction (direct method) :-

sound waves directly conducted into the air by means of
earphones.
Tympanic membrane vibrates and produces vibrations in
the ossicular components.
This sound energy delivered into the cochlea and reaches
in the fluid, where it is converted into electrical nerve
impulses that transmitted to the brain.

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 METHODS OF AUDIOMETRY TESTS
Bone conduction:- In this method the sound waves are
presented by a bone vibrator placed over the mastoid
prominence of the temporal bone.
The bone vibrator conducts the sound through the
mastoid bone directly to the inner ear.

There are added bone losses.

Tests in this area are restricted to between 500hz to

40mhz and transmission is at a maximum energy of
50db.

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 AUDIOMETER

 Audiometer is used to test to determine the hearing

loss and other specialised defect.
 The audiometer consists of a pure tone audio
oscillator.
 Frequency can be varied from 1200hz to 12khz and
output intensity can be controlled from 0db to
110db.
 It also incorporates a speech amplifier, a noise
generator for generating internal masking signal
and opposite ear switching mechanism.

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Date : 08 Aug18
 AUDIO MASKING
 Audio masking provides a means of excluding the
better ear from the test results when the poor ear
is being tested.

 It consists of subjecting the better ear to a sound

that is not of sufficient intensity to eliminate the
cross over response.

 The sound subjected is called the masking

signal .

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 BLOCK DIAGRAM OF AUDIOMETER

EQUALISER ATTEN- RED

OSCILLATOR & UATOR CHANNEL
LIMITER

MIC
RED

PROGRAMME BLUE
PHONE SPEECH
SELECTOR
AMP
SWITCH

TAPE

ATTEN- BLUE
NOISE
UATOR CLEANER
GEN
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 THRESHOLD OF HEARING
 Lowest level at which an observer can discriminate between
desired sound and background noise always present in the
auditory system
 Min intensity that is barely adequate to elicit a response
 Base of each audiological examination is the determination of
hearing threshold
 On est of sensitivity of ears – necessary to find whether hearing
loss is due to – disorder of hearing organ (cochlea) and
connection with brain (perceptive loss) or due to reduced txn of
sound vibrations through middle ear mechanism (conductive loss)

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 HOW A COCHLEAR IMPLANT
WORKS

 Device that turns sound waves into electrical

signals.

 Help many people with severe hearing loss regain

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Date : 08 Aug18
 HOW A COCHLEAR IMPLANT
WORKS
 Microphone picks up the sound waves and
transmits them to a speech processor
 Miniature computer turns sounds into digitized
electrical signals

 Signals travel to a receiver placed beneath the

skin and from there to electrodes that have been
surgically implanted in the cochlea

 Signals stimulate the auditory nerve, which carries

the signals to the brain.
 Brain interprets the electrical signals as sounds.

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