Diseases of hearing loss and deafness have seriously threatened human health and affected people’ s quality of life. The ear is an important sensory organ in human body, and the cochlea is the key sensory structure of human ear. The cochlea is characterized by precision, complex, and hidden location, which causes many insurmountable difficulties in experimental researches, So far, the interpretation of cochlear phonosensitive mechanism is still an important unsolved problem in medicine. There is a growing tendency for many scientists to integrate the interdisciplinary principles of mathematics, mechanics, biology and medicine, develop the real and effective structural biomechanics model, and carry out a thorough investigation on the sensory mechanism of cochlea, so as to provide a theoretical basis for hearing repair and clinical treatment. In this review, the status of researches on the mechanism of sound sensing and clinical application of cochlea was summarized, the existing problems were pointed out, and the future research work was also prospected.