Hearing gathers all sound but listening is selective and rarely conscious

Evidence

Listening is not the same as hearing and hearing is not the same as listening. The ear is constantly gathering and transmitting information—however attention to the auditory cortex can be tuned out. Very little of the information transmitted to the brain by the sense organs is perceived at a conscious level. — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 61

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes the ear’s passive gathering (hearing) from voluntary attention (listening).
• XREF: Connects to later claim that urban noise overloads the auditory cortex; also parallels the earlier chapter on noise and attention. — connects to: Reading and playing music can occur without genuine listening — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 46; Hearing and listening are meaningfully distinct experiences — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 311; Hearing is passive while listening requires active attention — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 320 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 61

Broader Connections

• The hearing system actively filters and modulates sound more than passively receiving it #expands (0.80) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 558
• Hearing is mostly internal neural processing, not raw external sound reception #expands (0.70) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 561
• Deep Listening expands to the whole soundscape while focusing on single sounds #expands (0.70) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 77
• Quiet sounds remain faintly audible if one learns to listen carefully #expands (0.60) — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 35
• Listening inclusively can fold one’s own thoughts into the sounded environment #expands (0.55) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 184