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How Does Sound Travel and What Stops It?

When you listen to the chilly winter air rustling through the Cascade Park trees, it feels like you heard the sound instantly. While hearing happens in a fraction of a second, sound waves go on a long journey before your brain processes them.

How Does Sound Travel?

Sound is a type of energy created by vibrations. These vibrations make sound waves that travel through materials like air or water. When something vibrates, it moves the particles around it, and this movement spreads as sound waves until the energy fades. If your ear is close enough, it picks up the vibrations.

The vibrations cause mechanisms in your own ear, called the eardrum and ossicles, to vibrate. The vibrations travel through the outer and middle ear to the inner ear.

Once in the inner ear, vibrations move into the cochlea, a snail-shaped, fluid-filled organ. The vibrations move the fluid, stimulating thousands of tiny hair cells lining the cochlea. The stimulated hair cells create electrical signals and send them down the auditory nerve to the brain, which understands it as sound.

What Stops Sound From Traveling?

A physical barrier, like concrete or soundproofing foam, can stop or absorb sound waves, preventing them from reaching your ears. Issues in the ear can also stop sound from reaching your brain. When your ears prevent sound from traveling to the brain, it’s called hearing loss. There are three main types of hearing loss:

  • Conductive. Conductive hearing loss happens when sound can’t pass through the outer or middle ear. Many say conductive hearing loss is like trying to listen to someone speak through a wall. A few common causes of conductive hearing loss include ear infections, earwax blockage, torn eardrums and an object stuck in the ear. In some cases, treating the underlying cause will clear conductive hearing loss.
  • Sensorineural. Sensorineural hearing loss happens when issues with the hair cells or auditory nerve in the inner ear prevent it from effectively transmitting sound to the brain. Common causes of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) include aging, loud noise exposure, drugs that damage the inner ear, illness and genetics. In most cases, there is no cure for SNHL, but hearing aids can help manage the condition.
  • Mixed. Mixed hearing loss arises when a combination of outer, middle and inner ear issues affects the path of sound.

If you find that speech often sounds muffled or you’re turning the radio up louder than usual, contact Bangor Audiology today to schedule a hearing test and treatment consultation.