Are you able or not to move your ears? This is what science says about this 'power'

MADRID, 20 Mar. (EDITIONS) -

Have you always thought that moving your ears is something that is inherited from parents to children and that not everyone can do it? Why does our body really need to move its ears? Does it really help? Can all animals move their ears? Can we ever learn how it's done?

The truth is that at this point in evolution, human beings no longer need to move their ears, as recognized by dermatologist Ana Molina, a specialist at the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital in Madrid, and it is something that fewer and fewer people are able to do. do. "In the end it is an unnecessary ability in humans," acknowledges this expert during an interview with Infosalus.

Unlike other animals, such as cats or dogs, which move them in various directions to better perceive sounds, movement in humans is limited and residual, so from an evolutionary point of view, as he comments in 'Healthy skin, beautiful skin' (Paidós), this ability only serves to laugh with our closest friends today.

"Dogs do need to move them to get 360-degree acoustics and hear sounds perfectly, but humans have them placed there, on both sides of the head. We receive sounds well and don't need to point our ears toward where the sound is coming from." sound", remarks this doctor and disseminator and professor of Dermatology at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

In turn, it highlights that, although our auricles are not barely developed, the fact of having the ears on the sides of the head, and not on the forehead, for example, as other animals do, allows us to perceive sounds. from different directions and without the need to move them.

Thus, he insists that the facial musculature is interconnected and by moving the oral musculature above all, clenching and opening the jaw, for example, you can learn to move your ears because, as he defends, we all can and it is not a skill with which we are born!

He says that there are even electrostimulation devices to achieve it, or tutorials on 'Youtube' that teach you how to do it. "We can all move our ears, but there are people who have learned, who know how to move them. We are all supposed to be able to learn, in the end the musculature of the expression is all connected. You just have to stand in front of the mirror and start contracting all the muscles near the ears, clenching the teeth, moving the eyebrows, or smiling, for example," he remarks.

However, this expert medical specialist in Dermatology, Aesthetics and Trichology insists that it is a "master's degree" that is no longer of much use to us, beyond humor: "It is a skill that we do not need, that is being lost, and that we have inherited from our ancestors.