Kunzang Namgyal
Mr. Ippolito
AP Biology- EF even
9 March 2018
Greenwood, Veronique. “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/science/ears-shape-hearing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront.
This week I read the New York Times article, “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear,” by Veronique Greenwood. This article focused on a study performed by Regis Trapeau, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal, which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. This study questioned if the shape of your ear affects the way you hear. Volunteers first heard a number of sounds and had to indicate where they believed the noises to be coming from, while hearing these sounds an fMRI machine was recording brain activity. Then, the volunteers were fitted with silicone molds into their ears and played another series of sounds, and the results showed that their scores were significantly lower than in the first scenario. After a week of wearing the silicon molds, the volunteers were brought back and played another series of sounds. This time most of the volunteers were able to indicate where the sounds were coming from and scored as high as they had in the first scenario. The results of this study support the hypothesis that “locating a sound in space requires your brain to incorporate not just the sound waves themselves but your own grasp… of how your ears modify that sound.” The volunteers needed time to adjust to the way sound waves were bouncing off their newly shaped ears. After their brains made this adjustment, their ability to locate where a sound is coming from returned to normal.
This study changed the way scientists believed the human brain “hears.” This research is pertinent in improving our understanding the human ear and our ability to sense the world around us by hearing. Understanding more about the human ear can lead to better hearing devices, which over 28.8 million adults in the US are in need of.
Overall, this article was well-written, clear, and concise. Greenwood explained the steps of the study in a way which all readers could understand, and she built credibility by mentioning that the study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. I do wish that Greenwood had explained more about the previous belief of how humans locate sounds, as it would have helped exemplify the impact of this research.
Timothy Cushman
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Ap Biology - Current Events Comment
4 March 2018
Current Events #18
Greenwood, Veronique. “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/science/ears-shape-hearing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront.
Kunzang wrote a great review of the New York Times article “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear.” Kunzang did a nice job on writing her summary of the article. She was able to give the reader the most important information in a clear and easy to understand fashion. Another part of her review that was done well was her inclusion of quotes from the author. Quotes, such as, “locating a sound in space requires your brain to incorporate not just the sound waves themselves but your own grasp… of how your ears modify that sound” help explain a complex idea to the reader in a specific way. The quotes also show that Kunzang’s review was backed up by data. Finally, Kunzang wrote a wonderful section on how the article is relevant to everyone. Kunzang was able to realize how these studies could help create new, better hearing aids. She also mentioned how this study changed the way scientists believed our brain understands sound. Overall, Kunzang wrote an interesting and informing review.
Despite an overall great review, there were two areas that could be improved upon. Firstly, Kunzang mentions how the study was conducted but never mentioned what types of sounds were played. This left the reader questioning what was going on during the study. By including this information she answers a question that was left unanswered. Another area that could be improved upon was how Kunzang never mentioned what was being done to further study how the shape of one’s ear affects their hearing. She says “This research is pertinent in improving our understanding the human ear and our ability to sense the world around us by hearing” but never says how people plan further study this to create even better aids. By adding this information the reader would be better able to see how this initial study was important and a predecessor for future studies. Both of these changes would not only answer questions that the reader had, they would bring more interesting information into her review.
I chose to read Kunzang’s review because I was interested in the title. I had no idea that the shape of one’s ear actually affected their hearing and wanted to learn more. Through reading her article, I was better able to realize how each part of the human body was created in a specific way that aids in its function.
Mia Gradelski
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AP Biology Current Event #21 Comment
March 18, 2018
Greenwood, Veronique. “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 6 Mar. 2018,
After reading Kunzag’s article, “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear” I thought it was fascinating to learn about the tremendous little details in our embryology as homo sapiens which has a leading affect on our hearing. I would’ve never imagined these findings would have been true. At the start of her review, she did a good job providing background information on the study and what questions it brought to the science world. She states, “This study questioned if the shape of your ear affects the way you hear.” Later, she did a good job explaining evidence for this and going in depth with the procedure that volunteers had done to locate the sound pace in the ear and how it relates to the shape. She writes, “Volunteers first heard a number of sounds and had to indicate…. Then, the volunteers were fitted with silicone molds….After a week of wearing the silicon molds.” Lastly, she did an excellent job restating the hypothesis that was made regarding the shape of ears and how it affects the wavelengths you hear. She states, “The results of this study support the hypothesis that ‘locating a sound in soundpace requires your brain to incorporate not just the sound waves themselves but your own grasp….” Here she outlined the main results of the lab and her review describes in depth the analysis that was done that was written inside this article.
Although Kunzung’s article review was very well developed, I thought at times she did make a few mistakes at times that could have been improved. For example, in the second paragraph, I would’ve liked to of had Kunzung to elaborate more on why this study changed the way scientists believed the human brain “hears.” I’m not quite sure what she means by this, she did not provide much evidence to support this. To improve upon this it would've been better to include more statistical data that was found in the original article. Secondly, although Kunzang provided many quotes taken from the article, there wasn’t much detailed evidence and statistical data that was presented. She stated, “The results of this study support the hypothesis that ‘locating a sound in space required your brain to incorporate not just he sound waves themselves but your own grasp… of how your ears modify that sound.’” In order to improve upon this sentence with a lack of details, she should’ve added more statistical data found in the article that would enhance the reader’s point of view and understanding of the topic. Overall, there were a few instances were Kunzang could of added more supporting evidence to enhance the credibility of her review.
Overall, I thought Kunzung’s article was an “out of the norm article” that researched a unique part of science. Her review helped me change my perception and understanding of life regarding how much of the population in the world needs some type of hearing aids and most importantly how “locating a sound in space requires your brain to incorporate not just eht sound waves themselves but your own grasp” which I did not know before. This was the main reason why I chose this review to comment, since I wanted to learn more about the shape of our ears and how it affects what we hear.