How do my ears sense direction?
CrowdScience
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The Differences Between Level Differences and Time Differences
If you have a sound on one side of your head, it will sound louder with the nearer ear. And we call that acoustic head shadow. The other cue is there's an ear on one side and an ear on the other. It will take longer for a sound to reach the further away ear than it will the closer ear. For low frequency sounds, time differences are more important. But if something happens dead in front of you, there's no timing or level difference between the ears. What if there's a sound above us? There are some animals that have an extraordinary ability to localise sound vertically. Owls can do this using their amazing auditory system. Professor Eric Knudsen
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