High Pitched Sounds

The purpose of my experiment is to find out if age affects your ability to hear higher pitched sounds. Before we can start you need to know how sound works, and many other factors needed in this experiment. Sound works by vibrations that bounce off objects and enter the ear and then enables you to hear (“How Does Sound Waves Work?”). Sound has many (levels of the pitch scale). There are high-pitched sounds, which are harder to hear, and low-pitched sounds, which are deep noises. You can get a really low-pitched sound by trying to do your “manliness” voice.

We know what sound is, but hearing is the ability to hear the sounds. When the vibrations enter the ear, the ear detects the vibrations and then the auditory nerve sends the vibrations to the brain where you will comprehend what you heard (Claridge). There are different parts of the brain that do different jobs. The part of the brain that perceives sound/hearing is the Temporal Lobe (Szymik). The temporal lobe is also where your facial recognition, emotions, and long-term memory is controlled. You can see where it is located in the image below.

A frequency is the number of vibrations of each sound pitch. High-pitched sounds have faster frequencies than low-pitched noises (“Pitch and Frequency”), which means that the faster the frequency the more vibrations there will be. The pitch of the sound is measured in a unit called the Hertz (“Noise Induced hearing loss”). High-pitched sounds are more difficult to hear because it takes more sound pressure to hear it. Our ears are set up to easily hear deeper or lower-pitched sounds (Bass).

Your ears age, as well as your body, even if you don't notice but by the time you get older you will most likely experience hearing loss. According to the article “Why Do We Age?”, when your body ages the DNA gets damaged and that is what causes aging. The ages that you will most likely to start to detect some hearing loss are most common between around 65-75.(“Age-Related Hearing Loss.”). When your ears age, changes are in the inner ear, middle ear, in the nerve ways to the brain (“Age-Related Hearing Loss.”). This is why I think that if you're older it will be harder to hear higher pitched sounds. I’m 14 and I took the test to see how high of a pitch I could hear up to and I could hear up to about 17,000-18,000 Hertz.

All this talk about hearing and how everything works but I haven't told you how the ear works and what the different parts of the ears are. The ear has three main parts, the pinna, the ear canal, and the cochlea. The pinna is the outer part of the ear or what you see when you look at someone's ear (The Outer Ear.). The pinna is like the sound funnel that interacts with sound and directs it into the funnel and deeper into the ear. The ear canal, or the auditory canal, is what transmits the sound from the pinna to the eardrum (The Outer Ear.). I can understand why they call the “eardrum” an eardrum because it is a flap of skin that is tightly stretched and it vibrates when sound hits it (Hoffman). A drum would do the same thing but instead of sound, it would most likely be a hand. Anyways once it vibrates off the eardrum it then goes to the inner ear which is the cochlea and that's when the message is sent to the brain (Eardrum.).

The ear is really delicate and easily damaged. One thing to help your ear stay in good shape is ear wax because it keeps the unwanted stuff out and keeps it from going to the eardrum and damaging it (The Outer Ear). Also, have you ever wondered what the hair in your ears does? There are two types of hair cells. One is the inner hair cells, which sends the information to the hearing nerves. The outer cells amplify and tune the sound information (“What’s Hearing Loss?”). The loss of the hair cells usually causes loss of hearing sensitivity (D., Alice). Without hearing sensitivity your tolerance to everyday sounds will be really uncomfortable.

Finding people of all ages was a little difficult. The first group of people that tested were kids in my class, all around the ages of thirteen and fourteen. The number of Hertz they were able to hear were mainly around 17,000-18,000 Hertz. Two, Luke and Erickson, which are fourteen and thirteen, were only able to hear around 13,000-15,000 Hertz. It could've been because they are guys but that's for Reily to find out. I had tested my sisters, one is 11 and the other is 18, Marlee had reached 17,702 Hertz. While I was testing Summer my dog kept wanting attention and nudging me but after we finally got to finish she reached 15,025 Hertz.

Needing more people in different ages, I decided to go to Marlee’s volleyball practice to see who would help. I found quite a few people that would help. The gym I was doing it in was not exactly quiet and it might have been harder to hear in there. I had to go up to random people and ask if they would do it. The hardest age to find is sixty and up. So far out of all the people, I have done the younger you are the better your hearing. I also did my mom and she being 52 had the worst hearing out of all of me and my sisters. She compared her hearing to other volleyball moms and she still had one the worst but not by far. Around the ages of forty to fifty were around 12,000-14,000 Hertz. All the little kids had heard at 19,000-20,000 Hertz.

In all, I think that age does affect your ability to hear. Over time your ears age as well as your body. All my results you could pretty much see the younger kids compared to older men and women by the number of Hertz they were able to hear. The numbers gradually went down the older the person that was being tested. My hypothesis was right but I also think that your gender affects it too. The results were pretty clear that age does affect but one thing was a little off. When the two boys in my class had done it their score was around the age of a 40-year-old. They were thirteen and fourteen. Older men did the test too and had worse hearing than the women too. I had male people test and even when they are the same age as the girls but still seem to have worse hearing. Reily’s results will be the final telling if your gender affects your hearing too. Finding different age people was difficult and it was super awkward to go up to strangers and ask if they would do it. If I were to go farther into my project I would like to find out or go more into what my partner Reily is finding out. I would want to know what makes males hearing worse. If I were to do my project differently I would definitely make the age groups broader. In example probably do ages 5-18, 19-35, 36-50, and 51 and above. I would still get the same results and it would have been easier to get the people in the age groups. Also, I would try to get quieter places to test. It would have been more accurate of the number of Hertz if it was quieter. My experiment was a success and I hope to go deeper into it.

“Age Related Hearing Loss.” NIH, 7 Dec. 2016, www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/age-related-hearing-loss. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.

Bass, Juliana. “Why are high pitch frequencies harder to hear?” Quora, 21 Jun. 2015, www.quora.com/Why-are-high-pitch-frequencies-harder-to-hear-in-words-compared-to-low-pitch-frequencies-especially-in-background-noise-How-can-this-be-possible-when-our-ears-should-naturally-raise-high-frequencies-due-to-our-ear-canal%E2%80%99s-natural-resonating-frequency. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017.

Claridge, Steve. “What is Hearing?” Hearing Aid Know, www.hearingaidknow.com/what-is-hearing. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.

D., Alice. “Why do adults lose hearing at high frequencies?” Stack Exchange, 19 Jan. 2015, biology.stackexchange.com/questions/27822/why-do-adults-lose-hearing-at-high-frequencies. Accessed 8 Feb 2017.

“Eardrum.” Kids Health, http://kidshealth.org/en/kids/word-eardrum.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017

Hoffman, Matthew. “Picture of the ear.” WebMD, www.webmd.com/brain/picture-of-the-ear#1. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017.

“How Does Sound Waves Work?” Media College, www.mediacollege.com. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.

“Noise Induced Hearing Loss.” American Hearing Research Foundation, Oct. 2012, american-hearing.org/disorders/noise-induced-hearing-loss/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.

“Pitch and Frequency.” Teach Engineering, 28 Jan. 2017, www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/cub_energy2_lesson05_activity3. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017

Szymik, Brett. “ A Nervous Journey.” ASU, 9 May 2011, askabiologist.asu.edu/brain-regions. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.

“The Outer Ear.” Hear It, www.hear-it.org/The-outer-ear. Accessed 14 Feb. 2017

“What’s Hearing Loss?” Kids Health, kidshealth.org/en/kids/hearing-impairment.html#. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.

“Why do we age and what can you do about it?” The Tech, genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news10. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.