Imagine trying to catch every word of a speech at a crowded public rally, the hum of voices and city noise making it nearly impossible to focus. You might assume fading hearing is to blame, but new research suggests the real issue lies in the brain, not the ears.
A study from the University of Washington School of Medicine finds that intelligence plays a surprising role in how well people make sense of speech in noisy settings. By comparing neurotypical and neurodivergent participants, researchers discovered that cognitive ability consistently predicted performance. In other words, your brain might be doing more of the listening than you think.
Intrigued? Click through the following gallery to see how intelligence could influence the way you hear the world.