Posted on 04/01/2025 1:20:53 PM PDT by Red Badger
Just something fun to cleanse your timeline:
Steve Stewart-Williams @SteveStuWill · Follow “[W]omen consistently have more sensitive hearing than men - by about two decibels on average - regardless of age or where they live… The researchers suggest that this may reflect a universal biological trait rather than a culturally specific pattern.”
You weren't imagining those mom superpowers. She really does have spidey senses.
The study was led by Dr. Patricia Balaresque from France's Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research in Toulouse and was published in Scientific Reports. It looked at 448 people across five countries and measured how the inner ear responds to sound through a technique used in newborn hearing screenings.
Scientists can measure an "echo" from your ear called "Transient-Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions" that indicates how the hairs in your cochlea respond to brief sounds, like a click or a snap.
Women's ears were a bit perkier.
In the population-based model (a), for amplitude metrics, strong contrasts were observed between population pairs, particularly those including Amerindian populations ... Sex also contributed significantly, explaining around 2 dB differences between men and women. Age sub-classes showed estimates ranging from 1.4 to 3 dB, with notable homogeneity observed between the youngest (18 - 25 and 25 - 35 years) and oldest (35 - 45 and 45 - 55 years) age groups, suggesting significant age-related trends...
So husbands, next time you fail at listening to your wife, just sit her down and say, "Don't be angry, honey, I'm just at a biological disadvantage."
I'm sure that'll go over REALLY WELL.
They need to be able to hear better, so they listen to their man. 🤣
My wife would argue that my hearing is very selective
Same, but 8 years being a ECM officer in a helicopter.
Or perhaps men just don't listen as much.
Man: "Lousy.."
Woman: "What was that honey??"
Guys have a lot more reasons to suffer hearing loss than women. Growing up on a farm, I ran chain saws, fired shotguns and other powder-propelled weaponry, drove tractors with no or minimal mufflers, and many more. The ladies for the most part spend time in much less noisy environments...
And yes, I have hearing aids...
LOL! Take the car next time!
My wife knows her hearing is much worse than mine because she needs the TV louder, and when we’re together, I hear lots of things she doesn’t hear.
But sometimes she thinks I’m hard of hearing too, because I often don’t answer when she calls from across the house. She says: if your hearing is so good, why didn’t you answer?
The explanation is twofold:
1) I DID answer - she just didn’t hear me.
2) I didn’t answer because I know she won’t hear me anyway no matter how loud I yell. Instead, I graciously make my way toward her, and then answer her question, which I heard just fine.
Another aspect of this is that she gets very frustrated and takes it out on me. For example, if don’t speak loud enough or turn the TV up loud enough for her, she views it as me being inconsiderate of her needs.
In all other regards, she is a reasonable person - but when it comes to her hearing loss, she acts entitled - she’s not alone either - I find most hard of hearing people tend to blame other people for ‘mumbling’ or turning the volume ‘too low’.
You win.
There ya go.
We can hear fine. We’re just not listening.
That’s because God gave us the ability to tune out women when they are endlessly whining about crap...
“rather than a culturally specific pattern.””
I would venture men work in louder environments and get hearing damage. I know I lost some hearing. But all you really have to do is listen for the pauses and just say, “Uh huh.”
There is such a thing as husband deafness.
Sometimes I’ll say totally crazy things to my wife, just to see if she’s listening (e.g. “Sweetheart, do you know that dog that they always had on that game show, Bob Barker?”. She answered yes. She’s not listening.
They have better hearing. They just choose not to use it (or punish you for what they hear ;-)
The men are better at ignoring.
On a related note, this made me think of this: 
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