4 ms·

How can you hear something that you can not hear? I'm not trying to be facetious, genuinely curious.

• Fauntleroy 4y ago
  You're not actually "hearing" anything. For one, the sound (usually) does not actually exist. In many cases it's more like an inappropriate signal from a damaged nerve or some of the teeny tiny "hairs" within the ear that sense sounds.
• DougWebb 4y ago
  Hearing loss is a physical problem. Tinnitus, often, is a signaling problem. The signal can represent a sound that the physical sensors can't produce anymore.
• dahart 4y ago
  It’s two different sources, and a subjective tinnitus source is perceived but not “heard”, if that makes sense. You might be able to experience something perhaps similar: many people can hear much higher frequencies when the speaker is in contact with their skull than through the air.
• lisper 4y ago
  It's a fair question, and it's hard to describe. What I perceive is a very high pitched pure sine wave. When I take a hearing test, my ability to hear real tones drops off long before I can hear anything approaching the pitch that I perceive. Does that make sense?