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Module 1.6c

Module 1.6c Sensation: Hearing
INTRODUCE THE MODULE
Make It Meaningful
LEARNING TARGETS
(Out of class) Before beginning
1.6-9 Describe the characteristics of air pressure waves that we hear as sound.
this module, ask students to listen
1.6-10 Explain how the ear transforms sound energy into neural messages.
to their favorite music. Ask them
1.6-11 Discuss how we detect loudness, discriminate pitch, and locate sounds.
to pay attention to the loudness
and the pitch. Then ask them to
ike our other senses, our hearing — audition — helps us adapt and survive. Hearing speculate how their ears and brain
provides information and enables relationships. Hearing humanizes: People seem interact to allow them to hear the
L more thoughtful, competent, and likable when we hear, not just read, their words
(Schroeder & Epley, 2015, 2016). And hearing is pretty spectacular. It lets us communi- music. Use their reflections as a
cate invisibly — by shooting unseen air waves across space and receiving the same from way to open the discussion on
others. Hearing loss is the great invisible disability. To not catch someone’s name, to not audition.
grasp what someone is asking, and to miss the hilarious joke is to be deprived of what
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
others know, and sometimes to feel excluded. As a person with inherited hearing loss,
I [DM] know the feeling, and can understand why adults with significant hearing loss
experience increased risk of depression and anxiety (Blazer & Tucci, 2019; Scinicariello
et al., 2019). INTRODUCE THE MODULE
Most of us, however, can hear a wide range of sounds, and the ones we hear best are
those in the range of the human voice. With normal hearing, we are remarkably sensitive to Activate Prior Knowledge
faint sounds, such as a phone ping. (If our ears were only slightly more sensitive, we would
hear a constant hiss from the movement of air molecules.) Our distant ancestors’ survival (10 minutes) Begin class with
depended on this keen hearing when hunting or being hunted. this activity, which asks students
We are also remarkably attuned to sound variations. Among thousands of possible
voices, we easily recognize an unseen friend’s voice. Moreover, hearing is fast. “It might take to decide if statements are
you a full second to notice something out of the corner of your eye, turn your head toward true or false. The statements
it, recognize it, and respond to it,” notes auditory neuroscientist Seth Horowitz (2012). “The tap into common beliefs and
same reaction to a new or sudden sound happens at least 10 times as fast.” A fraction of a
second after such events stimulate your ear’s receptors, millions of neurons have simulta- misconceptions about psychology.
neously coordinated in extracting the essential features, comparing them with past experi- This activity will benefit students’
ence, and identifying the stimulus (Freeman, 1991). For hearing, as for our other senses, we understanding of Module 1.6c as
wonder: How do we do it?
they read.
Sound Waves and the Ear Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
M1.6c: Fact or
Draw a bow across a violin, and you will unleash the energy of sound waves. Each bumping
into the next, air molecules create waves of compressed and expanded air, like the ripples on audition the sense or act of Falsehood?
a pond circling out from a tossed stone. As we swim in our ocean of moving air molecules, hearing.
our ears detect these brief air pressure changes.

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