Hearing Loss and Its Causes: Does Gender Make a Difference?

Hearing is one of the five senses of the human body, enabled by the ear. Ears pick up sounds as vibrations and then translate this information into a form for the brain to understand. Unlike other senses, this is a completely mechanical process.

Hearing loss is often associated with age. Many elderly people wear hearing aids, which leads to the suggestion that hearing deteriorates with age. Research shows that the main aspect of hearing loss that occurs is high frequencies. There have been many tests on what causes hearing loss; however, no test has confirmed that hearing may also be different between males and females.

The aim of this experiment is to find out whether there is a difference in hearing threshold between genders and if so, find out which gender has the better hearing. This experiment tests people from a range of ages and both genders. The experiment involves finding the highest sound each person can hear, and therefore finding the upper threshold of each individual’s hearing.

Background Research:

Sound waves

Sound and music are parts of our everyday sensory experience. Just as we have eyes for the detection of light and color, so we are equipped with ears for the detection of sound. The basis for an understanding of sound, music and hearing is the physics of waves. Sound is a wave which is created by vibrating objects and goes through a medium from one location to another.

Sound waves are longitudinal waves. Longitudinal waves are when the particles of the medium move in a direction parallel to the direction of energy. Since air molecules (the particles of the medium) are moving in a direction which is parallel to the direction which the wave moves, the sound wave is referred to as a longitudinal wave.

A sound wave, like any other wave, is introduced into a medium by a vibrating object. The particles of the medium through which the sound moves is vibrating in a back and forth motion at a given frequency. The frequency of a wave refers to how often the particles of the medium vibrate when a wave passes through the medium.

The frequency of a wave is measured as the number of complete back-and-forth vibrations of a particle of the medium per unit of time. A commonly used unit for frequency is the Hertz (abbreviated Hz), where 1 Hertz = 1 vibration/second. The frequency of a sound wave not only refers to the number of back-and-forth vibrations of the particles per unit of time, but also refers to the number of waves which pass a given point per unit of time.