Throughout our lives, we encounter health information from less-than-official sources. Maybe a grandparent, or a chatty classmate. Regardless of the spokesperson, we carry these tidbits with us, ranging from partially true to entirely erroneous. Occasionally, we pass them along, and sometimes — like today — they get debunked.
Though many of us might remember being told that dulling one sense sharpens another, a new study from the American Institute of Physics suggests that closing your eyes does not help you hear better.
In fact, scientists found that when participants shut their eyes, their brains “over-filtered” the sounds around them.
During the study, team members tracked the brain activity of participants while they listened to a variety of sounds. These were played with an undercurrent of background noise. Participants were asked to close their eyes and fiddle with the volume so that each sound was barely audible over the background noise. Then, they repeated the action while looking at a blank screen, as well as a photo and video related to the sound.
When they had visual cues related to the sounds, participants did much better.
Researchers suggest that a noisy context means the brain works hard to actively distinguish signals from background noise. But in quieter situations, closing your eyes might still help with detecting faint sounds.
Next, the team plans to study what occurs when visual cues do not match auditory ones — or when what you see does not match what you hear. This could help them understand if your brain just needs visual input to hear well, or if it requires the visual cue to “match.”
In the meantime, we’ll trust they have their eye on it.