“ Of Sound Mind offers a deeply scientific yet often poetic look at the hearing brain and provides an in-depth narrative about why such explorations are important. Selected as NPR’s Book of the DayOne of Behavioral Scientist‘s Notable Books of 2021 The sounds of our lives shape our brains, for better and for worse, and help us build the sonic world we live in. Kraus shows how our engagement with sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are. She traces what happens in the brain when we speak another language, have a language disorder, experience rhythm, listen to birdsong, or suffer a concussion.
Kraus explores the power of music for healing as well as the destructive power of noise on the nervous system. Sound plays an unrecognized role in both healthy and hurting brains. Auditory neurons make calculations at one-thousandth of a second hearing is the speediest of our senses. It interacts with what we know, with our emotions, with how we think, with our movements, and with our other senses. Our hearing brain, Kraus tells us, is vast. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word–or a chord, or a meow, or a screech. We don’t just hear we engage with sounds. Our hearing is always on–we can’t close our ears the way we close our eyes–and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. In Of Sound Mind, Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain’s core functions. Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. How sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are.
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