The auricular muscles, which enabled our distant ancestors to move their ears for better hearing, activate when people try to ...

“The exact reason these became vestigial is difficult to tell, as our ancestors lost this ability about 25 million years ago, ...

"These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks. This suggests that these muscles are engaged not merely as a reflex but ...

Evolution has largely deprived us of our ability to swivel our ears, but those vestigial muscles still activate when we listen intently, according to new research.

"These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks. This suggests that these muscles are engaged not merely as a reflex but ...

“These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks. This suggests that these muscles are engaged not merely as a reflex but ...

When we strain to catch what someone is saying in a noisy room, for example, small muscles in our outer ears, called the superior auricular muscles, kick into action, likely in an attempt to sharpen ...

called the superior auricular muscles, kick into action, likely in an attempt to sharpen our hearing ability. Because the muscle is small, though, it probably has little effect on our hearing ability.

In the hardest test, both background clips were made louder. The researchers found that the largest auricular muscle, the superior auricular muscle, became most activated during the difficult test.

“These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks.” The study, published in the journal Frontiers in ...