Study suggests that women can hear better than men — here’s why
It is often said that hearing issues can develop with age. Even the sounds we’re exposed to, the devices we use and genetics can affect our hearing over time. But did you know that even your sex can determine some part of your hearing? A global study done by Dr Patricia Balaresque from the Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (CRBE) in Toulouse (France) and Professor Turi King from the University of Bath (UK) revealed that whether you're a man or woman plays a role in understanding hearing sensitivity among individuals. Published in the journal Scientific Report, the study noted that the sex of a person can impact their hearing more than age.
448 participants from all over the globe, representing different groups, were studied. The sensitivity of the cochlea in the ear (the part that helps with hearing) was analyzed to understand how it transmitted brain signals in response to different amplitudes and frequencies of sound. This was done by measuring the “Transient-Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions” (TEOAE). It was noted that hearing is often better in the right ear than in the left. However, this decreases over time with age. When it came to the study regarding the sex of an individual and hearing, it was suggested that sex plays a major role in influencing hearing sensitivity.
Professor King, director of the Milner Centre for Evolution, noted, “We know that hearing generally declines with age and that exposure to loud noise and chemicals such as tobacco smoke can damage hearing. We wanted to investigate in more detail what factors shape our hearing and diversity of hearing sensitivities to see how our hearing has adapted to our local environment.” The results of the study showed that women reportedly had better hearing than the men’s sample. “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,” King added.
This factor became a crucial one in assessing other factors like speech and brain functioning. The professor explained, “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.” Coming to the reasoning behind this difference, the professors explained that hormones and genetic changes could be at play. “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,” King suggested.
Following the sex of a person, the environment came second in determining the hearing capacity of a person. The study mentioned that a person’s surroundings can affect the response to volume as well as the range of frequencies a person can perceive. Looking at this metric, people living in rural or forest areas showed higher sensitivity to hearing than those in city settings. The lead author noted that a further study must be done to understand what factors cause the natural hearing variation. Professor King said: “We know that humans are continuing to evolve, so the next question is whether our hearing is able to change in response to different environments generally or whether there are genetic adaptations involved.”