Hearing is a staged chain from air capture through mechanical conduction to neural processing

Evidence

The ear, more specifically the peripheral auditory system, consists of the external ear for capturing sound waves travelling in the air, the middle ear for mechanical conduction of the vibrations, and the inner ear for mechanical-to-neural transduction. Neural signals from the periphery are transmitted through the auditory pathway, where the neural signals are processed by different nuclei up to the auditory cortex where high-level analysis occurs. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 718

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the three-part functional division of the peripheral auditory system and the central pathway.
• XREF: connects to: Sound becomes mechanical movement via the eardrum and ossicle chain — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 524