We’ve all been there. You hear a loud noise somewhere, and you blink. You hear a loud noise in a song, you blink. But what I can’t understand, is that even when the noise is completely anticipated, we still blink or you can fight it back but your eyelids still twitch. A good example, for me, would be in the song Fall- Eminem. The beat in the beginning makes me blink even when I know the snare is coming. Any thoughts?
In: Biology
Startle Response
The instinctive reaction of the human body, when faced with potentially dangerous situations, is called acoustic startle-reflex eye blink. The startle reflex is a reaction that is triggered by the brain in order to protect the back of the neck (whole-body startle) or eyes (blinking of the eyes).
The acoustic startle-reflex eye blink is found to be caused by sudden sounds that are more than 80 Decibels. The main components of the brain that are involved in this reflex reaction are the amygdala, hippocampus, and anterior cingulate cortex.
https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-do-we-blink-when-we-hear-a-sudden-loud-noise.html#an-nbsp-involuntary-response
And its completely uncontrollable.
Risk reward. Any loud noise will most likely not cause us to lose our eyes. But the steaks are so high and the effort so low, that it’s worth it for our body to output minimal energy for the off chance there IS a sharp object violently flying toward our cronia. Blink on, little brother.
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