Of course, this is completely true. But note that I did not talk about the amount of information but the precision of information. Also note that every cone cell is equivalent to one hearing cell in the cochlea, of which there are plenty, too. (Only in the eye, they are distributed spatially while in the cochlea, they are distributed by frequency)
But all this is really not as important as the signal processing that makes sense of it. There are interesting connections between hearing and seeing. If you watch TV and someone at your side turns his head to you in order to speak, you will notice and shift your attention to him. You will think that you saw his head movement in the corner of your eye. But truth is, many people wearing hearing aids will not notice the same situation, for the simple reason that you actually did not see his head movement, you heard it.
There are many more examples where things like this happen. What you perceive is different from what your senses detect. All these intricate combinations of sensual information are the really interesting part.
Another fun thing about hearing: The human ear can detect very low sound pressure levels. Actually, it will detect a displacement of the eardrum of about the diameter of an air molecule. In a way, this is saying that the ear can detect the impact of individual air molecules on the ear drum (not really true, but in the ballpark). That is freaking amazing.
But all this is really not as important as the signal processing that makes sense of it. There are interesting connections between hearing and seeing. If you watch TV and someone at your side turns his head to you in order to speak, you will notice and shift your attention to him. You will think that you saw his head movement in the corner of your eye. But truth is, many people wearing hearing aids will not notice the same situation, for the simple reason that you actually did not see his head movement, you heard it.
There are many more examples where things like this happen. What you perceive is different from what your senses detect. All these intricate combinations of sensual information are the really interesting part.
Another fun thing about hearing: The human ear can detect very low sound pressure levels. Actually, it will detect a displacement of the eardrum of about the diameter of an air molecule. In a way, this is saying that the ear can detect the impact of individual air molecules on the ear drum (not really true, but in the ballpark). That is freaking amazing.