When people are trying hard to listen to something, the body seems to do its best to “prick up its ears,” even though this ability was lost by our evolutionary ancestors millions of years ago. That’s ...

Muscles only believed to be used to wiggle our ears actually enable people to listen more intently, reveals new research. Researchers have found that the auricular muscles, which helped our distant ...

If you hear something interesting, you might prick up your ears. That's a figurative expression, of course. People's ears don't actually move upward. But NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce found that this old ...

Vestigial human ear muscles react to sounds even if the external ear does not move. This could be used to build better earing aids. If you hear something interesting, you might prick up your ears.

In almost every species, ear movement can be a clue that the animal is trying to pay close attention to something. When people are trying hard to listen to something, the body seems to do its best to ...