Final answer:
Listening is the stage of the listening process when attention is given to specific sounds. It involves complex auditory processing that allows us to focus on certain sounds and determine their location.
Step-by-step explanation:
Listening is the phase of the listening process in which a listener focuses on a specific sound being received from a person or the environment. Sound is transmitted as a pressure wave, and hearing is our perception of these sound waves. Our ears are sophisticated transducers that convert sound waves into electrical nerve impulses, which are then interpreted by the brain. Differentiating and focusing on specific sounds, such as a voice in a noisy environment, is a crucial part of the listening process.
During listening, we often take for granted the ability to localize sound, which relies on the auditory system's use of both monaural (one-eared) and binaural (two-eared) cues. Sound localization is a central process in the brain stemming from the auditory nuclei calculating the interaural time difference and the interaural intensity difference between our ears. For instance, if a sound comes from the left, it will reach the left ear slightly sooner and more intensely than the right ear, allowing us to localize the sound's origin.