These muscles, called auricular muscles, alter the shape of the pinna (the ear’s shell). They are considered vestigial, which means that they have become basically useless to humans over the course of ...

An older man presses his fingers to the side of his head, next to his ear. To test whether humans still use auricular muscles — which once helped move our primate ancestors ... posted in the Frontiers ...

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 ...

Human ear muscles that scientists long believed were vestigial are actually activated when we are trying to listen hard, a new study has found. As humans grew more proficient with visual and vocal ...

But humans lost this ability around 25 million years ago, as our ancestors became more reliant on vision and complex vocal communication. The muscles responsible for ear movement — known as the ...

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.

Summary: Humans have vestigial ear muscles that once helped our ancestors focus on sounds. New research shows these muscles still activate when we strain to hear in noisy environments. Scientists used ...

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 ...