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Ear muscle we thought humans didn't use activates when people listen hard
The auricular muscles, which helped our distant ancestors move their ears to improve hearing quality, activated when people were trying to listen to competing s
To test whether humans still use auricular muscles — which once helped move our primate ancestors’ ears to funnel sound — scientists attached electrodes to the sides of people’s heads, and asked them to listen closely to an audiobook. “There are three large muscles which connect the auricle to the skull and scalp and are important for ear wiggling,” explained Andreas Schröer of Saarland University, first author of the study in Frontiers in Neuroscience. “One possible explanation could be that the evolutionary pressure to move the ears ceased because we became much more proficient with our visual and vocal systems.” To test whether these muscles are more active during more difficult listening tasks, the scientists recruited 20 people without hearing problems.
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