Auditory system tasks

The auditory system, like the other sensory systems, must perform four tasks:

1. pick up stimulus energy from the world around us.
2. change that energy into a pattern of neural impulses.
3. carry those impulses to the proper locations in the brain.
4. process the information contained in the pattern of impulses so that the stimulus can be identified.

In the auditory system, the first two of these tasks are performed by the complex structure we call the ear.