In noisy environments, study participants with their eyes closed struggled to hear faint sounds audible to their open-eyed counterparts.
Research participants listened for faint sounds over audio noise. They could hear those sounds much better when they could open their eyes and watch videos or even still photos matching the sounds they were trying to hear. Credit: Yu Huang
WASHINGTON, March 17, 2026 — Most people will close their eyes when trying to concentrate on a faint sound. Many of us have been told that keeping our eyes closed helps us hear better — that it frees up our brains’ processing abilities and increases our auditory sensitivity. However, that strategy may sometimes backfire, particularly in environments with a lot of loud background noise.
In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University tested whether a…click to read more
From: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Visual engagement modulates cortical criticality and auditory target detection thresholds in noisy soundscapes
DOI: 10.1121/10.0042380