Ongoing History Daily: Our ears and “store” music, apparently

Here’s another medical note about music. Scientists have recently discovered that there’s something about the inner ear that allows it to “store” sounds.

They found that vibrations in the inner ear continue even after the sound is long gone. They think that this could be a purely mechanical way of “remembering” recent sounds.

These boffins did all their work on guinea pigs–real guinea pigs–and found that “after-vibrations” in the inner ear depend on how loud the original sounds were and how many times they were heard. 

So what?  This is important stuff when it comes to people who have a hard time recognizing sounds like speech–and music.