Some people can fluctuate their ears using old muscles
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The “useless” muscle allows some people to actually fluctuate their ears when we want to hear something.
Our ancestors have been the ability to the focus of their ears when they diverged from monkeys millions of years ago, but some muscles and brain neurons that support this feature in humans today.
Many scientists assumed that these alleged ears muscles are outdated, even if they were able to vibrate the ear. But in 2020, Daniel Strauss At Sarland University in Germany and his colleagues found that they are already activated in response to hearing sounds from Different directionsPay them to ask whether this also happens when people focus on listening.
To explore this, the researchers obtained 20 people with typical hearing, all of whom are between 22 and 37 years old, to conduct three tests for different difficulty. They all participated in focusing on a 5 -minute audio book that was narrated with a female voice during leather Sensors measure electrical activity in their ear muscles.
In an easy test, the researchers quietly played podcast hosted by a male voice at the same time as Audiobook. On a medium -raising mission, they added a quiet clip of a female voice, similar to those in Audiobook, to the preparation. In the most difficult test, both the background clips were made higher.
The researchers found that the largest front muscle, the superior ear muscles, became more activated during the difficult test. “It is amazing to see almost these forgotten muscles working hard while listening to the effort,” says Strauss.
The team did not evaluate whether activating these muscles helped the participants’ ability to focus on the main auditory kitchen, but measuring its activity may provide an objective way to assess listening efforts. This can help develop the best hearing devices, which aims to reduce the listening breed to a minimum.
But first, the largest studies that include people of all ages and with a set of hearing capabilities need to check the results, he says Youssef Kakimak At the University of Outago, New Zealand. He says the team also did not explain eye movements or facial expressions, which can affect the activity of the ear muscles.
Strauss hopes to address some of these points in the future. He says: “More studies are needed to gain a deeper understanding of this” nerve fossils “in our brain and how to benefit from them,” he says.
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