How do humans know if something is a sound?

Answer 1

If a neural transmission occurs through the auditory pathway via cranial nerve VIII, it will be processed by the auditory cortex as sound information, some of which will reach higher, cognitive centers of the brain where they will consciously be recognized as sound.

This typically occurs as a consequence of a sound (pressure) wave impinging on the eardrum, which physically transfers the sound energy through the tiny bones of the middle ear to the cochlea, where the physical energy is converted to electrical energy for transmission.

However, certain illnesses can cause false signal to be sent on this pathway, resulting in phantom sounds such as booming or ringing that the brain registers as sound, but which are unrelated to any environmental stimuli.

Answer 2

ummmm... not totally sure i understand the question, but here goes.

Any source of sound sends vibrations or sound waves into the air. Sound is a wave and needs to travel thru a medium (such as air or water).

A common way to visualise a sound is an image of someone dropping a pebble into a still pond. The wave from the pebble radiate out until it hits something (like the edge of the pond). Sound works exactly the same way. The pebble can be a bang (say a ballon popping) and the sound waves move thru the air until they hit your ear.

These funnel through the ear opening, down the ear, canal, and strike your eardrum, causing it to vibrate. The vibrations are passed to the small bones of the middle ear, which transmit them to the hearing nerve in the inner ear. Here, the vibrations become nerve impulses and go directly to the brain, which interprets the impulses as sound (music, voice, a car horn, etc.).

The need for waves to travel in a medium is why "in space, no one can hear you scream...". As space is a Vacuum there is nothing for the wave to radiate thru. Any space movie you have ever seen where something blowup and you hear the "BOOM" is lying to you.

ah well. i hope that answers you question a bit.

Answer 3

Your ear is a complex organ. There are many sounds that you as a human can't hear (ex. dog whistle). Or even the fact that younger people can hear higher pitched sounds than older people (ex. special cell phone ring that teachers aren't supposed to be able to hear if you have an older teacher). Basically the vibrating air cause your eardrum to vibrate, which passes the vibrations into your middle ear (3 tiny bones = hammer, anvil, stirrup), which pass the vibrations to your inner ear (cochlea). Your cochlea is a spiral shaped organ with fluid and tiny hair-like sensors that vibrate and transmit an electrical impulse to your brain. The average human ear is sensitive to sound frequencies between 20 and 20,000 hertz (waves per second). Anything more or less and you don't hear it. Under 20 Hz is infrasound and over 20000 Hz is ultrasound.

Answer 4

This is the simplest answer, ur ears pick up the sound waves, and then they send the information to the head. But forget the brain part, i dont understand how you know something isnt a sound... when you hear it, it becomes a sound. And i dont think there is any way to tell if something is making a noise when there is no evidence of it.

Answer 5

We as young children are taught this because that's what we have agreed to calling it. Who's to say a blue crayon is really blue? Why can't it really be Silver? Why is Beef called beef? Not ground up animal product? I think it's because if we didn't have a name for things we wouldn't have a clue what our loved ones were asking for! Hmmmm

Answer 6

they hear it