Chapter 5 | Super Hearing
Chapter Subheadings
The Ear – An Audible Crash Course • The Things We Can(not) Hear •
What Daredevil Actually Hears (Maybe)
Summary
Can a person hear heartbeats? Or whispers from blocks away? How much extra mileage would “super hearing” afford Marvel’s famous blind superhero, and how much comes down to limitations set by the laws of physics? This chapter takes a closer look at the functioning of the human ear, and the physics of sound, and what it all means for Daredevil.
Chapter Excerpt: “One feature of the auditory system that is helpful in this regard is one we’ve talked about already: The fact that we have one ear on each side of the head and an auditory system that is able to use the difference in information between the ears to locate sounds in three-dimensional space. As mentioned previously, a single ear can also perform some functions of spatial hearing, but not to the same degree.
Using spatial hearing would obviously be a good way for the brain to figure out which features of the soundscape belong together. And this is certainly a contributing factor. However, there are other cues as well. One is the difference in fundamental frequency between two sounds such that two sounds are easier to separate if the difference between them is large. Another factor is the temporal aspect; a group of frequencies that begin at the same time can be interpreted as belonging together. Ultimately, there is probably even more going on here.”
Errata (sort of)
Not an error as much as a case of unclear wording in the following section: “You would also see that the oval window on one end is matched by a membrane called the round window at the “far” end. When the stapes pushes on the oval window (I like to picture this looking something like a plunger in a toilet bowl), this is matched by the movements of the round window, which help the fluid move without having to be compressed more than necessary.”
The round window is not located at the far end of the uncoiled “tube,” as such, but rather at the far end of the liquid-filled cavities which surround and sort of fold back around the basilar membrane. See the image below for a better illustration.
Helpful resources
A quick look at the cochlea and its parts
Better illustration of how the oval and round windows connect
Image source: https://hyperacusisfocus.org/research/surgery/
The Microsoft Lab which is currently the quietest place on Earth
Panels
From Daredevil #125 (1964), by Marv Wolfman, and Bob Brown
Caption: “Night: A time of supposed quiet, when sleep comes readily to most Manhattanites, but not for Matt Murdock. Imagine what agonizing noises his super-sensitive hearing must accidentally overhear. Voices! Cars! All the mind-shattering sounds which most of us normally block out. It is after 3:00 when sleep finally comes. And just a few short hours later, Matt must again awaken.”
From Daredevil #105 (1998), by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark
Daredevil: “I’ve got one last chance to find him. One last chance to save my wife. And only one way to do it… I listen harder than I have in a long time. I know his voice… his tone, the metallic echo of the mask he wears. The self-satisfied laughter at the back of this throat. It isn’t easy to shut out the Kitchen’s noise and zero in on one voice among the din. It never has been… But I can do it.”
From Daredevil #169 (1964), by Frank Miller
Caption: “Daredevil relaxes, and clears his mind of thought. A wave of sound roars up from the street, strong and clear. He shuts it out. He concentrates. Softer sounds murmur to him from a thousand separate sources. He shuts them out. He strains. Still softer sounds whisper faintly. He sifts through them carefully, isolating each. Finally he hears it. He smiles.”
From Daredevil #1 (1998), by Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada
Matt thinks: “Three blocks away… a girl – no more than sixteen, judging from that heartbeat… and a baby – maybe two months old or so. But what really has my attention is that Lincoln rushing her, doing about ninety.”
Meanwhile, the priest drones on: “Son, what you’re going through is fairly common. When one feels their life is damaged in some way their first instinct is to reach out to God. And because you’re perhpas not as ardent in your relationship with the lord when you’re in a more… corporeal… relationship… you feel the pangs of what we call “Catholic guilt.”
