If you have an earbud in one ear and not the other, why does it become harder to hear out of the free ear?

Question

Does your brain run out of hearing capability when it’s overloaded or something?

In: 0

Answer 1

One of the ways we pick out sounds in noisy environments is by working out where different sounds are coming from and tuning into the direction we want to listen to (roughly speaking), called *spatial release from masking*. If you’ve only got one ear open, it’s a lot harder to work out the direction of sounds, meaning it’s harder to ignore background sounds and therefore harder to listen to the “signal”.