The typical hearing range for a healthy young person is from 20-20,000 Hz, allowing them to hear low and high pitched sounds. As we age, the ability to hear higher frequencies lessens. Many animals like dogs and bats can hear a much broader frequency range than humans, from 40 Hz - 60,000 Hz for dogs and 20 Hz - 120,000 Hz for bats, which helps them locate sounds and prey. While a human's hearing range is not as broad as other animals, nature has evolved our senses to an optimal level for our environment.
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1. Hearing Frequency Covers a Broad Range
The typical hearing response covers a broad range of frequencies. For a
healthy young person, this is normally from 20 to 20,000 hertz. Our ability
to discern these ranges helps us to hear low rumbling sounds and very
highly pitched sounds.
As we age, our ability to hear higher
frequency sounds lessens. This is
natural and under normal
circumstances does not have a great
deal of impact. However exposure to
loud noise over extended periods of
time can cause some hearing loss and
have a greater impact than what would
normally be expected.
The frequency range which most people can hear is very different than for
many other animals. For example, a dog can normally sense sound from 40
Hz to 60,000 Hz.
We are probably familiar with a silent dog whistle. It produces sound
which is above a frequency that your ears to sense. However, it is still within
the range for dogs and is therefore a good way to alert our pets without
disturbing other people.
Dogs have specialized muscles in their ears to help train and focus on the
sounds which enhances their ability to hear subtle sounds as well as sounds
in higher frequency ranges. This is a very useful ability for guard dogs so
they can sense the presence of intruders or other unusual sounds.
Bats have incredibly sensitive hearing and can hear frequencies which range
from 20 Hz to 120,000 Hz. This kind of sensitivity enables them to locate
prey by using a process called echolocation.
They create a high pitched sound which bounces off their prey. The bat can
discern this sound and interpret the location and type of prey in this way.
2. So as you can see, the frequency range for a human is not as broad as many
animals. Since we humans can use our intelligence to help protect ourselves,
it has not been as important that we can sense higher frequency sounds.
Nature seems to do a good job and evolve our senses to an optimum level
for our environment.
As was indicated earlier, a healthy 20 year old can typically hear frequencies
in the range from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The ability to hear higher frequencies
does deteriorate over age.
For example, a typical middle aged male can discern upper range
frequencies of 12,000 to 14,000 Hz. And the hearing range for men typically
worsens faster than for women of the same age.
For More Information on Hearing Frequency, Call Hearing Aid Health Care
At: (760) 820-4850
Or
Visit Us At:
http://hearing-aids-yucca-valley-ca.com