Auricular Muscles Scientists Thought We Didn’t Use Actually Activate When We Listen Hard

If you can wiggle your ears, you can use the auricular muscles, which helped our distant ancestors listen closely. These 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’ auricular muscles are only vestigial. But now scientists at Saarland University have discovered that auricular muscles activate when we’re trying to listen to competing sounds.