Your Ears Involuntarily Perk Up Around Interesting Sounds

Ever notice how your dog’s ears perk up at sudden sounds? Your ears might be doing something similar—just in a much subtler way.

These involuntary, nearly imperceptible ear muscle movements are controlled by your vestigial auriculomotor system, a “neural fossil” that’s been part of the human brain for 25 million years.¹

In short, although you can’t move your ears toward interesting sounds on your own, your vestigial auriculomotor system tries to—and often does!

What Research Shows

In a 2020 study, the participants read a boring text while surprising sounds, such as a traffic jam or a crying baby, played. They then listened to a podcast while a second podcast played in another direction. Researchers recorded the electrical activity in the ear muscles and used video recording to track any ear movements during both experiments.

After reviewing the data, they determined that “tiny involuntary movements in muscles surrounding the ear closest to the direction of a sound the person is listening to” occurred. Additionally, when participants were trying to hear one podcast and ignore the other, their ears made small movements in the direction of the podcast they preferred.¹

These results show that human ears do “perk up” when encountering an interesting sound, physically shifting toward what they want to focus on.

The most exciting part? The study’s findings could be used to develop more advanced hearing aids, which could “sense the electrical activity in the ear muscles and amplify sounds the person is trying to focus on, while minimizing other sounds.”¹

At Fort HealthCare Audiology, we offer several state-of-the-art hearing aids and always use Real-Ear Verification to ensure patients get the maximum benefit from their devices. Call 920.563.6667 in Fort Atkinson or 262.473.8920 in Whitewater to make an appointment.