To grasp what we see when presented with a visual scene, we just need to stand in front of it. We can attend to
one feature and then to another as many times as we wish. The visual scene is constantly available to our eyes, at
least when it is made of still objects. Contrast the case of audition: when, e.g., perceiving melodies, spoken
language or footsteps, which are events extended in time, we need to wait until they have unfolded before we can
identify them. That is, we are able to hear only one segment of sound at a time. This is because a specific
auditory event is available to us only for the length of its unfolding - which, for it to be properly experienced,
requires us to remember what came first and how the event developed. Reflecting upon this very intuitive
difference between audition and vision suggests that sensory memory has a different role in audition than it has
in vision. My objective is to study the connection between audition and sensory memory. My hypothesis is that
because we hear sounds as temporally extended events, there should be a connection between Hearing and
Remembering (HeaR) that grounds auditory perception. There has been little research exploring the relationship
between audition and sensory memory in recent philosophical literature. HeaR addresses this fundamental
question by connecting the philosophy of sound with the philosophy of memory, thus opening up a new field of
philosophical research on audition and memory. HeaR’s methodology is based on: 1) a comparison between
auditory and visual perceptual experience of events; 2) an interdisciplinary investigation of the temporality of the
different kinds of sound and its relation to sensory memory; and 3) a dialogue with classical philosophers, like
W. James and E. Husserl, who investigated the relation between memory and time.