The philosopher Immanuel Kant is reputed to have said, “Not being able to see separates from things. Not being able to hear separates from man.” He valued hearing as a social sense, perhaps more important than sight. Our modern world is very much dominated by visual stimuli. Therefore, the importance of hearing and also the efficiency of our ears are often underestimated today.
Our hearing – an important sense
Even in the womb, we can hear. No wonder that newborns can distinguish their mother’s voice from all other voices before they are able to recognize her face. Our ears are in constant use, day and night, for the rest of our lives. They do an incredible job: We can perceive extremely quiet sounds. If we could see just as well, we would still be able to recognize a 10-watt bulb from 1,000 kilometers away.
We hear a range of over 10 octaves – from 20 hertz to 16,000 hertz. The power of the eye corresponds to only one octave. If you were to transfer the dynamic range of the ear to a scale, that scale could weigh everything from a grain of sand to a tractor without having to change gears. Hearing is the most sensitive and dynamic sensory organ in humans.
What hearing does for us every day
- Alerting The sense of hearing alerts and warns. Phone rings, doorbells, bangs, shouts, thunder or horns can alert us to danger, especially on the road.
- Orientation
Hearing helps us orient ourselves in space. With our eyes closed, we hear whether we are in a large room or a small room. Since we hear with two ears, we can estimate from which direction sounds come. - Enable communication through speech
Thanks to our hearing, we can learn to speak. With healthy hearing, conversations are possible even under adverse conditions – background noise, poor telephone connection, reverberant rooms. - Inform Through the ears we absorb a lot of information – conversations, telephone, radio, television.
- Transport moods In conversations, we hear more than just words. We also perceive the volume, speech melody or pitch and thus decipher the moods and feelings of the speakers, such as irony, astonishment, aggression.
More “visual types”
Despite everything, adults give priority to sight, this was the result of a study by Prof. Vladimir Sloutsky, Ohio University. He showed four-year-olds and adults a picture and played three sounds at the same time. Later, this combination of picture and sound sequence was to be recognized. While all the adults concentrated exclusively on the correct picture, a good half of the children (53 percent) focused primarily on the sequence of sounds. Although – as another test showed – they were just as easily able to recognize the correct picture immediately.
Children like tones
While adults focus on visual perception, children apparently place the emphasis on hearing. The scientist assumes that young children focus more on sounds because otherwise it would not be possible for them to learn to speak. (fgh)
