Auditory gnosis is the ability to perceive and understand spoken language, it is a decoder that allows us to understand the person who is speaking to us.

What are auditory gnosis?

Auditory gnosis is the ability to perceive sounds, to elaborate them and to give them a meaning. This is valid for environmental sounds and for language.

The first function of auditory gnosis is to make the difference between these two sounds. Then, our brain is able to go and find this sound in its memories and give it a meaning.

Our brain is also able to give a different importance to the sounds we hear. For example, if we hear our first name, we will be more attentive. Or if you are at home and you hear the coffee pot whistling, you will go to the kitchen.

Auditory agnosia disorders

On the contrary, an auditory agnosia is a disorder causing a lack of understanding of oral language and environmental sounds. The subject is unable to decode the sounds he or she hears, yet the ear is not damaged.

This type of disorder is usually caused by a lesion in the temporal lobe.

Depending on the symptoms, there are three types of auditory agnosia.

• Sound agnosia is an inability to identify sounds in the environment, hearing the same sound over and over again or confusing sounds with each other. However, sound agnosia does not affect speech understanding.
• Verbal deafness or verbal agnosia affects the ability to recognize words, but sounds in the environment can be identified perfectly.
• Phonagnosia no longer allows the subject to identify the voices of his or her relatives or well-known personalities. The subject may also have problems with expression, sometimes not being able to decode his or her own words.

Exercises to train and improve auditory gnosis

It is possible to train your auditory gnosis. You can listen to the sounds around you and try to identify as many as possible. Or you can listen to someone talking on TV and clap your hands every time they say a specific word.

If you can practice with someone, take objects that, if shaken, make noises (keys, a box of pasta, a newspaper…). Turn your back, the person you are with will shake one of the objects, you will then have to recognize which object has been shaken.

Our games to work on auditory gnosis

• The Musical Ear
• Colormind

Auditory gnosis allow us to recognize all sound stimuli, which can be of different kinds. Sounds are important information in the environment.

Here are the different types of information that we can have thanks to the auditory gnosis:

1. Memorization of sounds

The environment is full of sounds and noises.

The auditory gnosis allow us to identify these sounds and to recognize them. This mechanism is very important because we can find important information from sounds. For example, if we hear a car braking, we turn to see if it is next to us.

2. Word memorization

The auditory gnosis allow us to recognize the words we hear and to give them a meaning.

The first step is to recognize that a sound is actually a word, so we create a filter between the sounds of the environment and the language. Then we have to recognize this word and look it up in our vocabulary to give it a meaning.

We are always listening to what is going on around us, and certain words attract our attention. For example, if someone calls your name, or if we hear about a movie that we want to see too.

3. Understanding oral language

Language is a complex thing.

Many words are put together to form sentences, but depending on the words we use or the context, the meaning of the sentence can change. The auditory gnosias allow us to understand oral language in different forms.

4. Immediate memorization of sound information

Our brain can store certain sound information to accomplish a task.

SCARLETT

A version for seniors and adults with advanced cognitive disorders (such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s…).

Easy and adapted games, to encourage players in their brain training.