Wiggling your ears might seem silly, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. While humans aren’t great at moving their ears like some animals, researchers found that we still try to focus our attention when we listen.
For many animals, ear movement helps them figure out where sounds are coming from. Humans, however, lost this ability around 25 million years ago, according to Andreas Schröer from Saarland University. Despite this loss, our brains still retain some parts of the ear-moving system, even if they don’t serve a purpose anymore.
In earlier studies, the same research team discovered that our ear muscles react when we pay close attention to sounds. Recently, they took their research a step further, investigating how these muscles respond when we listen hard. They gathered 20 adults with normal hearing and had them listen to an audiobook while a podcast played from the same spot.
The researchers designed three listening scenarios. In the easiest one, the podcast was quieter than the audiobook. The hardest scenario had two podcasts playing together, making it more challenging to focus on the audiobook.
Schröer explained why this study is important: “Think about trying to hear someone in a quiet café versus a noisy restaurant.” Participants repeated the scenarios multiple times with the speaker in different locations, all while wearing electrodes to track their muscle activity.
After each test, participants rated how much effort they used to concentrate on the audiobook. The results showed that as the listening task got harder, participants felt more effort and lost focus more often. During the toughest scenarios, the researchers saw more muscle activity in the parts of the ear that lift and move it.
Interestingly, most people in the study couldn’t voluntarily move their ears. Schröer noted that while other research indicates it’s possible to learn ear movement, it wasn’t a factor in their findings. Although this research is preliminary and needs to be performed on a larger scale, it offers valuable insights.
Ultimately, the study suggests our ear muscles are trying to help, but their current role seems minor. As Schröer puts it, “This vestigial auriculomotor system is trying its best, but probably doesn’t achieve much.”
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