By Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
, New Scientist, reports on new research that shows that our eardrums appear to move to shift our hearing in the same direction that our eyes are looking. Jennifer Groh, the lead researcher, believes “that before actual eye movement occurs, the brain sends a signal to the ear to say ‘I have commanded the eyes to move 12 degrees to the right’.” Why? She opines that “[t]he eardrum movements that follow the change in focus may prepare our ears to hear sounds from a particular direction,” noting that one reason why the eyes and ears move together may be to help “the brain make sense of what we see and hear.”
My guess is that for our primate ancestors, and then for primitive humans, there was a survival advantage to hearing sound from something that had been seen. Friend or foe? Food or predator? It will be interesting to see where this research leads, particularly as Woodward writes that the study might help develop better hearing aids, “which must locate where sounds are coming from to work well.”
Research is always good. That’s how we learn about how the world works. But we don’t need any more research to know that noise is a health and public health hazard, and that we need to press our elected officials to make the world quieter now.
Because no matter how good the technology becomes, preserved normal hearing is far better than any hearing aid. And far cheaper, too.
