Why can we hear sound around us no matter what direction we are facing, but in order to see anything, we have to be facing in the direction of that object?

Question

Like I get that we obviously have ears on both sides of our head, but I would think that something that is directly ahead of us we should be unable to hear, since that object is basically perpendicular to our ears, but of course we can hear it absolutely fine. Why is that?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Ears are evolved to pick up sound from any direction. This is most helpful for survival.

Eyes are designed to pick up light from a very specific direction. This is helpful for things like hunting where this gives both depth and directionality. Also light has to be refracted in a particular way so that there can be a clear “vision”. This means our eyes have lenses that can change shape to see distant and close objects (you cannot read a book from 15 inches AND see a distant object at the same time and have both objects in focus) – therefore simultaneous multi direction vision is both more difficult (biologically) and not useful. This is unnecessary for ears.