Ear – 1. the organ of hearing and balance in humans 2. the faculty for discriminating sounds.
Hearing – the faculty of perceiving sounds. 2. the range within which sounds may be heard.
Decibel – a unit expressing the intensity of sound.
(Oxford Canadian Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press, 2005)
How the Ear works
1. There are three main areas: the outer, middle and inner ear.
2. The outer ear (the part we see), is located from the ear canal to the ear drum, and catches sound in a form of sound wave.
3. The middle ear then turns that wave into a vibration.
4. Vibrations are then passed to the small bones of the middle ear, which transmit the vibrations to the hearing nerve of the inner ear.
5. The vibrations become nerve impulses and go directly to the brain, which interprets the impulses as sound.
(http://www.entnet.org/healthinfo/ears/ear.cfm)
(Source - http://www.vestibular.org/images/ear_diagram_lg.gif)
What did you say? Could you please repeat - LOUDER?!?!
Our ears are very sensitive, complex organs that we must consider when designing for the human experience. Everyday tasks such as listening to an MP3 player, working in shops with loud machinery, crossing a busy street, going to a nightclub or concert, catching a plane or riding the subway; may all cause long-term damage to your ability to be able to hear.
A decibel (dB) is a unit of measurement that indicates the relative amplitude of a sound. The zero on the decibel scale is based on the lowest sound level that the healthy, unimpaired human ear can detect. Sound levels in decibels are calculated on a logarithmic basis. An increase of ten decibels represents a ten-fold increase in acoustic energy, while 20 decibels is 100 times more intense, 30 decibels is 1,000 times more intense etc. Below is a table that shows the intensity of various activities on our ears.
(Source www.ci.redwood-city.ca.us/cds/planning/precise/pdf/ISND/AppendixCNoiseReport.pdf)
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