Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on the new research revealing why some people can wiggle their ears

Can you wiggle your ears? Apparently around 15 percent of the population can consciously move their ears up and down. Now, new research published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience have figured out where this ear wiggling skill came from.

While humans can't turn their ears like some animals, our ear muscles still try to make tiny, unconscious movements when we're listening to something intently.

In the study, the researchers asked 20 volunteers to listen to an audiobook played through a speaker at the same time as a podcast was also played from the same location.

They created different scenarios, starting with easy ones where the podcast was quieter than the audiobook and the pitches for both were very different. They also created challenging scenarios where two podcasts were played together over the audiobook and the pitch of all three were similar.

Electrodes were placed on the volunteers allowing the researchers to record the electrical activity produced by the muscles involved in wiggling the ears.

The researchers found activity in the superior auricular muscles, which lift the ear upwards and outwards, was larger during the most difficult listening conditions and that the posterior auricular muscles, which pull the ear backward, were more active when the sounds came from behind the participant than in front of them.

While the majority of the volunteers couldn’t physically move their ears, the subtle twitches measured are thought to be remnants of an ancient reflex, called a "neural fossil" which came from our ancestors who could move their ears to focus on sounds.

Although we lost the ability to visibly move our ears about 25 million years ago, these findings suggest that the neural pathways for ear movement are still present - and might subtly aid our ability to hear things.

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