In news that will come as no surprise to many, scientists have now confirmed that men really aren’t as good at listening as women.
Experts have discovered that men have significantly less sensitive hearing than women across all frequencies and populations.
And it could go some way to explaining why they didn’t hear the request for dishes to be done, or for the bins to be taken out.
An international team of scientists conducted hearing tests for 450 individuals across 13 global populations, including those in Ecuador, England, Gabon, South Africa and Uzbekistan.
They investigated the sensitivity of the cochlea within the ear, looking at how it transmitted brain signals in response to different amplitudes and frequencies of sound.
It is already well known that people generally have better hearing in their right ear, compared with their left, and that hearing usually declines with age.
However, they were surprised by their findings on the effects of sex.
Analysis revealed that hearing is more influenced by sex than age, with women showing an average of two decibels more sensitive hearing than men across all the populations studied.
The study could go some way to explaining the root of many domestic disputes – that men ‘simply didn’t hear’ a request to do chores (stock image)
While this is generally considered to be a very subtle difference in loudness, the researchers said it is significant.
Professor Turi King, co-author from the University of Bath, said: ‘We were surprised to find that women had two decibels more sensitive hearing across all the populations we measured, and this accounted for most of the variations between individuals.
‘This could be due to different exposure to hormones during development in the womb, due to men and women having slight structural differences in cochlear anatomy.
‘As well as having higher hearing sensitivity, women also perform better in other hearing tests and speech perception, indicating that their brains are also better at processing the information.
‘We don’t really know why this might be but given the detrimental effect of noise on overall health such as sleep quality and increased cardiovascular disease, having more sensitive hearing in noisy environments may not always be a good thing.’
The team found a person’s environment was the second most significant influence on their hearing.
People living in forest areas had the highest hearing sensitivity and those living at high altitudes had the lowest, the team discovered.
They suggest that people living in forests could have higher sensitivity because they’ve adapted to an environment with lots of non-human sounds, where vigilance is essential for survival.
The researchers said men have slight differences in the structural anatomy of their cochlear compared to women, which could go some way to explaining the findings (stock image)
Or, it could be due to being exposed to lower levels of pollution, they said.
People living at higher altitudes may have reduced sensitivity due to a number of reasons including the impact of lower atmospheric pressure on measurements, potential sound reduction in high altitude environments or physiological adaptations to lower oxygen levels.
The team also found a difference between urban and rural populations, with those living in cities having a shift towards higher frequencies, possibly due to filtering out low frequency traffic noise.
Dr Patricia Balaresque, who led the study at the Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research in Toulouse, France, said: ‘Our findings challenge existing assumptions and highlight the need to consider both biological and environmental factors when studying hearing.
‘Identifying drivers behind natural hearing variation will improve our understanding of hearing loss and individual differences in noise tolerance.’
The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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