[hprotagonist]

Author’s Note. Although I use the word “hear” to refer to how I perceive sound, that’s not an accurate term. Since cochlear implants bypass the natural hearing process, we can’t properly call it hearing.

This is partially true. CIs replace everything up to the auditory nerve -- the hair cells in the cochlea, the mechanotransduction at the eardrum, etc are all literally short-circuited by the implant.

However, much of what we call "hearing", and basically all of the perceptual aspects of it, begin on the AN itself, or in the areas of the brainstem and midbrain that the AN projects to. These areas receive input from the AN as would be true in a normal-hearing individual, with the caveat that the available frequency spectrum is greatly reduced.

[jrace]

As someone who spent over a decade working with heard of hearinga nd hearing amplification devices, I would argue that (much in line with your statement) we don't "hear" anything until the auditory center in the brain process the sound.

Even those with normal hearing do not process all sounds that arrive at out Tympanic Membranes (and if we did...we would likely go insane from over stimulation).

I had quite a few patitents that lost most of there hearing yet still had constant tinnitus.

A small few even reported the tinnitus changing from a constant tone (whne they had mild hearing loss) to almost recognizable speech and/ or music once they had severe hearing loss.

It could be argued that even though they had next to no hearing they still "heard" more than they cared for.