Of the five human senses, the sense of hearing is one of the most powerful. The sense of hearing perceives music, speech and environmental sounds in a differentiated manner that surpasses the capabilities of other sensory organs.

Hearing works faster than the eye

The human ear is more sensitive and faster than the eye. Words are understood much faster than pictures are processed: In the same time the brain registers a visual stimulus, between six and eight words can be understood.

However, the sense of hearing is not only used for hearing and understanding, it is also a "mood maker": The acoustic signals that the sense of hearing picks up awaken emotions - think, for example, of the effect that music or the voice of a loved one can have.

Hearing as a receiver of warning signals

The emotional effect of acoustic stimuli has a background in the history of development: once our sense of hearing warned us of natural disasters and predators, today it protects us, for example, from dangers in road traffic. Unlike the eyes, the ears are able to pick up warning signals even when we are asleep and transmit them to the brain.

Hearing also helps us with our daily orientation. Both ears localize the direction from which an acoustic signal is coming - if it comes from the left, it reaches the left ear only a thousandth of a second faster than the right. But the brain still registers where the sound is coming from as quickly as lightning.

By the way, our hearing can distinguish between several hundred thousand sounds!

Find out here how hearing works - and read here how it can change over the course of a lifetime.