Consumer's Guide to Hearing Aids > Using Both Ears

Two ears are better than one!

Binaural hearing is the technical term used for hearing with two ears: bi, for two; and aural, for ears. Hearing binaurally provides us with space perception, depth perception, localization, and balance.

First you must realize that hearing occurs in your brain, not in your ears. Your ears act as a messenger to your brain. The ear actually brings what is heard to the brain and the brain interprets the message. If you have hearing loss in both ears but choose to wear one hearing aid you are reducing your brain's ability to understand and decipher a message by 50 percent; you also reduce the ability to perceive depth, space and direction.

Less power is needed when a person wears two hearing aids. Hearing aids work together to detect sounds from all around you. Lower volume settings are achieved when hearing aids work as a team. This results in better comfort for you making listening easier because sound is louder and clearer.

Listening with one hearing aid gives you the perception of a low, flat unnatural sound. The brain requires sound to be delivered by both ears (in stereo).

Using two hearing aids maintains your ability to determine the direction of sound. When only one hearing aid is worn every sound you hear in the environment is amplified by that one hearing aid. Therefore, everything you hear will sound as if it is coming from the side that you wear your hearing aid on. This is also an important safety factor. When you are driving, crossing a street, or need to determine the direction of a warning signal, you need both ears to accurately determine the direction of sound.

Just as your brain uses both eyes to convert an image, it needs both ears to process sound. If the brain is not receiving a signal from both ears, your auditory intelligence is halved. The pathways from the ear to the brain are very complicated; therefore, it is imperative that the brain receives as much information as possible. People with vision problems in both eyes do not use only one eyeglass!

Many hearing aid users are concerned about understanding speech in background noise. Two hearing aids give your brain a better chance of discriminating speech from background noise. A person using only one hearing aid reduces the brain's ability to separate speech from background noise.