Related topics: hearing loss

Putting sound waves to work to create safer public spaces

The risk of hearing loss does not come just from loud machinery or other obvious noise. It can also affect people in public environments like theaters and concert halls. Absorbing this excess sound to make public environments ...

Hard-of-hearing music fans prefer a different sound

Millions of people around the world experience some form of hearing loss, resulting in negative impacts to their health and quality of life. Treatments exist in the form of hearing aids and cochlear implants, but these assistive ...

How the ear may inform the brain when hearing is impaired

A cochlear signal, the exact role of which has been unclear since its discovery around 70 years ago, probably gives the brain information on whether the ear is functioning normally or not. This is the conclusion of a study ...

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Hearing impairment

A hearing impairment or deafness is a full or partial decrease in the ability to detect or understand sounds. Caused by a wide range of biological and environmental factors, loss of hearing can happen to any organism that perceives sound. "Hearing impaired" is often used to refer to those who are deaf, although the term is viewed negatively by members of Deaf culture, who prefer the terms "Deaf" and "Hard of Hearing".

Sound waves vary in amplitude and in frequency. Amplitude is the sound wave's peak pressure variation. Frequency is the number of cycles per second of a sinusoidal component of a sound wave. Loss of the ability to detect some frequencies, or to detect low-amplitude sounds that an organism naturally detects, is a hearing impairment.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA