The fascinating world of hearing
Switch on Life is a free online learning platform with videos and interactive games about hearing loss and hearing technology. You can discover the basics about acoustics, frequency, and the anatomy of the hearing process in an entertaining and exciting way. We also introduce you to the fascinating world of hearing and the technology of hearing implants. The content is in plain English.
Switch on Life consists of eight different chapters with numerous interactive activities, which we will show you one by one over the next few months. All content is based on science.
Today you will learn about the difference between hearing with one or two ears.
Chapter 1
Why do we have two ears?
About the importance of listening with both ears
In the game "Meet Your Friends", you are part of a conversation in a restaurant. You can choose between listening with only one ear and listening with both ears. Throughout the game, you will be repeatedly asked to answer questions about the content or to locate a sound source.
You will find that you can understand a conversation much better and only correctly identify a sound source if you listen with both ears. With just one hearing ear, you can simply guess where a sound is coming from. In addition, it is very difficult for you to follow a conversation when there are loud background noises.
If one ear fails, directional hearing or acoustic orientation in space is very limited. This is a major safety risk, especially in road traffic. Whether a certain noise comes from the front, left or right can only be determined with two good hearing ears. In addition, conversations in noisy surroundings can hardly be understood. Such limited speech comprehension is constantly noticeable at work and in everyday life. In the case of a unilateral hearing impairment, optimal care with hearing aids and/or hearing implants is therefore extremely sensible. Deaf people can only experience the countless benefits of bilateral hearing with two cochlear implants: less hearing effort, better speech understanding in noisy environments and directional hearing.
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