Gaby
Women often complain that men don’t listen to them. An international team of researchers from the UK, France, and Ecuador says there’s some truth to that — but the reason may be physiological rather than inattentive. The issue isn’t so much inattention as a physiological difference in men’s hearing.
A new study found that men have slightly worse hearing than women. So, can you forgive a man for missing his partner’s request to wash the dishes or take out the trash? That’s for each woman to decide for herself.
What Did the Researchers Discover?
It’s long been known that people generally hear better with their right ear than their left, and that hearing declines with age. Now, researchers reported in the Daily Mail that gender influences hearing even more strongly than age.
The researchers tested the hearing of 450 individuals from 13 populations around the world, including Ecuador, England, Gabon, South Africa, and Uzbekistan. The team studied how the cochlea transmits signals to the brain in response to sounds of varying amplitude and frequency.
The analysis revealed that women across all studied groups have average hearing sensitivity about two decibels better than men’s. That’s a small difference in volume, but it is meaningful for human hearing.
Professor Turi King, a co-author of the study from the University of Bath (UK), said, “We were surprised to find that women’s hearing is two decibels more sensitive across all the populations we studied, and this explains a lot.”
The difference may come from hormonal influences during prenatal development and slight structural differences in the cochlea between women and men.
“In addition to greater hearing sensitivity, women also perform better on other hearing and speech-perception tests, which suggests their brains are better at processing auditory information,” she said.
“Considering the harmful effects of noise on sleep and cardiovascular health, more sensitive hearing in a noisy environment isn’t always an advantage,” she added.
The team also found that environment is the second most significant factor (after gender) affecting hearing. The sharpest hearing appeared in populations living in forested areas, while the poorest hearing was found among people living at high altitudes.
The researchers suggested residents of forested areas have adapted to environments full of non-human sounds, where vigilance matters for survival. Their better hearing may also be linked to lower levels of environmental pollution.
Meanwhile, people living at high altitudes tend to hear worse, possibly because of lower atmospheric pressure, reduced ambient noise, and physiological adaptations to lower oxygen levels.
The team also compared hearing sensitivity between urban and rural populations. City dwellers were better at picking up high-frequency sounds than rural residents. The researchers speculate urban ears may have adapted to constantly filter low-frequency traffic noise.
Dr. Patricia Balaresc from the Center for Biodiversity and Environmental Research in Toulouse (France), who led the study, said, “Our findings highlight the need to consider both biological and ecological factors when studying hearing.”
The results of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
