Answer to Question #329882 in Human Anatomy and Physiology for benard

Question

Why it's so difficult to localize sound with only one ear? How does having two ears help to localize sound?

Answer 1

Our auditory system relies on principle of relativity and comparison of sounds from both sides. That’s why hearing sound from only one side of the body limits the amount of sound that person can hear clearly from the other side.

The azimuth of a sound is signaled by the difference in arrival times between the ears, by the relative amplitude of high-frequency sounds (the shadow effect), and by the asymmetrical spectral reflections from various parts of our bodies.   And each ear analyzes auditory information from both sides through the system of cochlear nucleus and intersections of auditory pathways.