Why do we blink over loud noises?

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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

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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.

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