Eli5: Why do people close their eyes when they hear loud sounds?

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Eli5: Why do people close their eyes when they hear loud sounds?

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Reflection come from nerves on system center…when some thing from environment sound exploding or cracking or falling havely in conseguence that spund come with air blasting,material spreed and imidiately our body comes to help to first close eyes preventing first eye cover

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a reflex.
A loud sound often means there’s a danger, from fast-moving flying stuff.

It’s an evolutionary survival trait. Our ancestors who didn’t respond to booms died. Those who did survived. And here we are.

It’s called the “accustic startle reflex”.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Evolved response. Over the course of history, loud noises are often accompanied by fast flying debris. Think about the last million years of history that our ancestors lived through, 99.999% of which came before speakers and megaphones. Most of the loud bangs would have been nearby lightning impacts, rocks in your fire exploding etc.

Turns out that people who had the urge to duck and cover when they heard a boom were more likely to survive than those who didn’t flinch, which makes sense. That means a slight reproductive advantage. Repeat this over thousands of generations to the present day and here we are, all descended from the guys who ducked from loud noises.

TLDR: Even if the loud noise isn’t *always* dangerous, you still have better odds of living to reproduce if you recoil from loud bangs than if you don’t.