A study shows that vestigial ear muscles activate when humans listen intently, mirroring how animals move their ears to locate sounds. Using electromyography, researchers found that these muscles ...

These auricular muscles helped change the shape of the pinna, or the shell of the ear, funneling sound to the eardrums. Millions of years ago, our ancestors stopped using them, so humans ...

One such example is the muscles around our ears, which in many animals help direct hearing toward sounds of interest. While humans lost this ability millions of years ago, new res ...

Human ear muscles that scientists long believed were vestigial are actually activated when we are trying to listen hard, a new study has found. Although the auricular muscles changed the shape of ...

The auricular muscles helped change the shape of the shell–or pinna–of the ear and helped humans living millions of years ago listen closely. They are still used by roughly 10 to 20 percent of ...

Does this increased muscle activity help modern humans hear better? Probably not. "The ear movements that we have been studying are probably too tiny to have any effect on hearing," Hackley said.

These auricular muscles helped change the shape of the pinna, or the shell of the ear, funneling sound to the eardrums. Millions of years ago, our ancestors stopped using them, so humans ...