Hearing

Messer, Rachel H

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_792-1

Rachel H Messer³

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Synonyms

Audition; Auditory perception; Auditory system; Aural perception

Definition

The sensory process by which auditory stimuli are perceived as sound waves by the ear(s) and then translated to neural signals and comprehended by the brain.

Introduction

The ability to hear (audition) is an impressive skill that differs greatly among species. For humans, the level of auditory discrimination that has developed over time has evolved not only due to outside influences of everyday noise, but also as a result of hearing’s role in humans’ complex speech and language production and comprehension. Hearing involves external and internal structures, as well as physiological processes that enable sound processing.

The Auditory Process

Essentially, the process of audition is catalyzed by changes in air pressure from the normal surrounding atmospheric level, which are the result of a stimulus such as noise from an object creating patterns of molecule vibrations in the air (Zemlin 1998). This...

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References

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Zemlin, W. R. (1998). Speech and hearing science: Anatomy and physiology. New York: Pearson.
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Authors and Affiliations

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
Rachel H Messer

Authors

Rachel H Messer
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Correspondence to Rachel H Messer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
Todd K. Shackelford
Rochester, Michigan, USA
Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
Jennifer Byrd-Craven

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Messer, R.H. (2017). Hearing. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_792-1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_792-1
Received: 11 October 2016
Accepted: 01 August 2017
Published: 09 August 2017
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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