Flex Your Ear Muscles!  

When you are trying to listen in a noisy room, your ear muscles flex.

Not everyone can wiggle their ears, but everyone has ear muscles. These ears muscles  flex when you are trying hard to listen. You don’t even have to think about it!

A dog’s ears perk up in response to sound.

When a dog hears a sound, its ears stand up. This helps guide the sound into the dog’s ears. It helps the dog figure out where the sound is coming from. Humans can’t move their ears like a dog can, but they do have similar ear muscles. 

Ear muscles in humans are weak. That is why most of us can’t wiggle our ears. These muscles probably don’t help us hear. This does not mean that the muscles are useless, however. Knowing when ear muscles are flexing tells us when people are trying to listen. This can help engineers design better hearing aids.

What Do You Think?    How can learning more about ear muscles help us?

Photo Credit: (t)ramirezom/123RF, (b)Tierfotoagentur/Alamy Stock Photo