Books
James O Pickles, An Introduction to the Physiology of Hearing, Academic Press, 3rd edition, 2008. This single authored book provides an excellent overview of hearing mechanisms from the external ear to the brain. It is easily read by someone with a good high school or early college background in biology.
Hair Cells and Hearing Aids. C.I. Berlin, editor. Singular Publishing Group, Inc. San Diego, 1996. This book contains contributions to a one day symposium with the same title. The level of the chapters range from intermediate to advanced and the book includes an instructive CD that demonstrates the role of outer hair cells in hearing.
The Cochlea. From the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research. P. Dallos, A.N. Popper, R.R. Fay, Editors. Springer, New York, 1996. This book provides research reviews on the inner ear with contributions by many scientists. Information on the cochlea is more complete and more technical than the Pickles book.
Articles
Audiological Processing in Sensorineural Hearing Loss: What the Ear Tells the Brain. M. Charles Liberman. Published in the Journal Hearing Loss p. 9-13, March/April issue 1997. This easy to read paper provides an excellent description of how auditory information is "coded" in the nerve fibers that leave the cochlea for the brain. Hearing Loss is published by Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc., now known as the Hearing Loss Association of America, a national organization dedicated to improving hard of hearing people's lives though education, advocacy and self help.
The World Wide Web
The Web provides a great deal of information on hearing. There are a number of websites on hearing research and several support groups for the hearing impaired. The net, with its multimedia capabilities, is an exciting educational tool and a tremendous amount of information is available. As with any media which thrives on free expression, you must exercise careful judgment as to the accuracy of specific websites. Four URLs that will get you started are:
The Association for Research in Otolaryngology. See the Virtual Library for resources around the world.
Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing established in 1890 to empower persons who are hearing impaired to function independently by promoting universal rights and optimal opportunities to learn to use, maintain and improve all aspects of their verbal communications.
Journey into the World of Hearing. An informative tutorial about the inner ear from the Pujol laboratory in Montpellier.
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