A recent study indicates that humans exhibit electrical activity in vestigial ear muscles while engaging in challenging listening tasks. Though modern humans cannot move their ears like other animals, these muscles still respond. Research participants listened to an engaging audiobook which was intermittently overshadowed by distracting sounds. As focus fluctuated during the task, variations in electrical signals were recorded, suggesting that these muscles, although not utilized in the same way as in animals, still signal an engagement in concentration and auditory processing.
Lifting the ears up straight is, in almost every species, a clue that the animal is putting some work into it. They're paying close attention, they're concentrating.
In this experiment, we recorded from two different ear muscles... One that raises the ears up, and one that pulls the ear back.
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