FEEDBACK

摘要

It's enough to make the ears on a Christmas elf wiggle: the muscles surrounding our outer ear tense in response to unexpected sounds and prick up during attention-focused tasks, according to a study in Psychophysiology. This suggests that people are "unconsciously attempting to orient their ears toward the relevant sounds". The authors hypothesise that humans retain a vestigial ear-pointing reflex, although it is too weak to move the ear. Feedback reckons these impulses could be harnessed by an appropriate prosthetic - may we suggest the festive, pointed kind?