Listening is the ability to use one’s hearing in a voluntary and attentive manner in order to learn and communicate. Listening is therefore a high-level cognitive function that involves the ability to manage emotions. It is not a passive sound recording that would depend solely on the functioning of the hearing instrument.
When the mental interpretation of the sensory information transmitted by the ear is wrong, listening is disturbed. We are talking about listening distortions.
This distortion is linked to the dysfunction of the two muscles of the middle ear, whose role is to allow the harmonious arrival of the sound in the inner ear and then the brain. When the sensory message is altered, the brain protects itself by triggering mechanisms of inhibition of listening.