What happens inside your ear to make you hear sounds? We'll lead you through the first few steps so you can see for yourself! Everything takes place inside your middle ear, which is at the end of your ear canal, behind the eardrum. Hear is a cutaway view of your ear canal and middle ear: Now let's look a little closer; the shaded brown square in the picture above is shown in greater detail, just below. Have a look. Sound travelling down the ear canal hits the eardrum, which vibrates ... just like a drum! Attached to it on the other side are three little bones that are connected to each other, and named for what they look like. These bones, the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, act like a lever, transferring the vibration and amplifying it. This amplified vibration is passed into the inner ear. The middle ear cavity shown here is about the same volume as a sugar cube! Inside the inner ear, which is filled with fluid, the vibrations cause ripples. These ripples are felt by a membrane lining the inner ear. This membrane contains nerve cells, which transmit electrical pulses to the brain as they are stimulated. Different parts of the membrane are stimulated by different frequencies, so that complex sound vibrations can be translated into complex patterns of electricl pulses. The brain can interpret these pulses as 'sounds'. And that's how we hear! Find out more about sound, in greater detail ... how it's generated and what we can use it for. Resources