What happens in your body before your brain realizes what you are hearing?
you are able to taste something before you hear it
sound waves vibrate stereocilia in your ears
G proteins change their shape and split in two
you are able to smell something before you hear it
Before your brain realizes what you are hearing, sound waves first travel through the air and enter your outer ear. These sound waves then travel down the ear canal and hit the eardrum, causing it to vibrate. The vibrations are then passed on to the tiny bones in the middle ear, which amplify and transfer the vibrations to the fluid-filled cochlea in the inner ear.
Within the cochlea, the vibrations cause hair cells called stereocilia to bend, triggering the release of neurotransmitters that send electrical signals through the auditory nerve to the brainstem. From there, the signals are sent to the auditory cortex in the brain, where they are processed and interpreted as sound.
So essentially, the physical process of sound waves vibrating the stereocilia in your ears occurs before your brain registers and recognizes the sounds you are hearing.