head-cocking for understanding

February 8, 2006 8:29 PM

Why is it that we tilt or cock our heads when we are trying to comprehend something?

Why do humans and other animals cock their head when they are trying to gain a greater understanding of something or if they're trying to see something or hear something more clearly? I've found a few papers detailing in what manner primates or dogs cock their heads and what this "head-cock" is in response to (visual stimulus, unfamiliar sounds etc). But I wonder if anyone has ever studied why we actually do this, why head-cocking works to let us think more clearly when we're trying to wrap our heads around something. Does anyone know if neurological mechanisms have been studied?

posted by SDAnder to science & nature (28 comments total)

Argh. There was an ask post about this a while ago (primarily to this expression's use in movies, if I recall correctly) but my hunting hasn't revealed it yet.
posted by luftmensch at 8:36 PM on February 8, 2006

The earlier thread to which luftmensch refers is right here.
posted by Danelope at 8:47 PM on February 8, 2006

Changing the position of the ears helps with determining sound direction. Head-cocking to triangulate the sounds of an approaching predator seems like something that may have evolved pretty early in vertebrates, which means it might persist in situations of confusion in modern humans, even after the immediate usefulness has fallen away.

Just a guess.
posted by mediareport at 8:52 PM on February 8, 2006

Good guess, though, mediareport.
posted by curtm at 9:29 PM on February 8, 2006

perhaps cocking left activates the right hemisphere of the brain and vice versa. i usually cock right.
posted by eighth_excerpt at 10:14 PM on February 8, 2006

weird. I definitely cock to the left...
posted by honeyx at 10:18 PM on February 8, 2006

maybe
maybe
posted by mr.dan at 10:30 PM on February 8, 2006

Might just be sociological affectation. Certain African tribes, rather than scratching their heads to 'think', actually rub their noses with their index finger.
posted by Ryvar at 10:36 PM on February 8, 2006

Ryvar: We used a different example in one of my classes— In one set of tribes in West Africa, you tap your temple to mean "thinking." In many Asian and European cultures, this means "crazy."
posted by klangklangston at 10:43 PM on February 8, 2006

FWIW, I'm fairly sure I'd never cocked my head to indicate thinking/comprehension until I was in my early twenties (a lot of things happened in my life to make me a more outgoing/social person, and I think I unconsciously picked up quite a few nearly unnoticible-but-common tics & behaviors in conjunction with that).
posted by soviet sleepover at 10:59 PM on February 8, 2006

I just cocked my head stopping to wonder if I ever cock my head ... Is this one of those party tricks? I'm totally going to ask people this same question the next time I'm in a group.
posted by Robot Johnny at 11:02 PM on February 8, 2006

Has anyone else noticed that dogs do it too?
posted by matkline at 11:11 PM on February 8, 2006

I have a weird tic that was once noticed by someone quizzing me -- whenever I'd answer a question, I'd look directly to the left of his head ... Eventually, he asked "what? are the answers written over there or something?"

My thoughts on the matter is that I want to avoid being under scrunity when i'm thinking -- or confused -- i definitely move my gaze away from anyone asking me a question as a reflex. I imagine it's possible we all have a similar reflex to some degree.

i should learn to quit doing it so I can lie on the stand.
posted by fishfucker at 11:16 PM on February 8, 2006

eye movement has been said to indicate truthfulness or deceit.
posted by kcm at 11:27 PM on February 8, 2006

dogs do it too?

I've seen it in cats, dogs, birds and squirrels.
posted by mediareport at 11:31 PM on February 8, 2006

I've actually given this some thought recently, and I think that, regardless of what the origin of this behavior might have been, we just do it now because it's so recognizable. If somebody says something to me that I just don't get, I cock my head to the side and they immediately get that I don't follow them. Just like if somebody's saying something you agree with, you might nod your head while they're speaking to show that you agree.
posted by toddshot at 11:48 PM on February 8, 2006

mediareport has it: we cock our heads to determine direction of sound sources.

The ears can distinguish direction in the horizontal plane by finding the difference in a sound's arrival time at one ear and at the other. (And the ear is built so that (unlike the eye, for example) information is processed mechanically rather than electrochemically -- this makes the processing faster by an order of magnitude, fast enough that even small differences can be distinguished.)

But this same technique cannot be used to distinguish the sound source's position vertically. Indeed, for any timing difference between the two ears, there is a "cone of confusion" [figure 3], in which any sound sources on a circle perpendicular to the axis of the cone all have the same timing differences.

By cocking the head, the horizontal plane is rotated, allowing the hearer to take a second sample of the sound and better determine the actual location of a sound source. In all likelihood, having come instinctually to use head cocking to locate sound sources, it's semi-automatically used when attempting to analyze ambiguous situations, even those not involving finding sound sources, thus the cocked head of the puzzled thinker.
posted by orthogonality at 11:54 PM on February 8, 2006

Has anyone else noticed that dogs do it too?
posted by matkline at 11:11 PM PST on February 8

Yes.
posted by Guy Smiley at 12:25 AM on February 9, 2006

Cocking the head for vision includes taking a scan of something that may be partially obscured. A slightly different angle may reveal parts that were hidden. I became aware I use this when trying to view things through trees.
posted by Goofyy at 12:34 AM on February 9, 2006

mediareport has it: we cock our heads to determine direction of sound sources.

I like that explanation too but I'd be wary of taking a plausible explanation and declaring it as the winner.

In particular, studies of primates seem to show that "Head-cocking in primates typically occurs during visual inspection of objects. The response is primarily characteristic of diminutive species that lack ocular dominance columns in the visual striate cortex..." which would support a more visual explanation.
posted by vacapinta at 1:29 AM on February 9, 2006

Fascinating stuff.

But dogs can look up.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:12 AM on February 9, 2006

Parrots exhibit this behavior as well. At least, my African Grey did.
posted by trip and a half at 5:43 AM on February 9, 2006

Sand.
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I'd say when dogs do it, it isn't trying to hone in on sounds. Dogs can actually tilt the direction of their ears independently to determine the direction of a sound. It's more obvious in dogs with upright ears. It is a curious phenomen I never gave too much thought to. (cocks my head) I don't believe it is related to sound, it is related to vision. It's a way of trying to gain a different perspective of an unknown object. It just stuck with us from primitive times to handle difficult abstract concepts as well as difficult concrete objects.
posted by JJ86 at 6:53 AM on February 9, 2006

Works for me for triangulating visual data, too. Interesting that vacapinta's link mentions it's more common in infancy among certain primates; that seems to fit with a general "perceptual confusion" theory.
posted by mediareport at 7:17 AM on February 9, 2006

I always kinda thought we were actually mimicing dogs to just as a way to communicate that we're confused or pondering something.
posted by glenwood at 7:55 AM on February 9, 2006

Increased blood flow to one side of the brain?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:46 AM on February 9, 2006

Paging jonson! He's got a great pic of two of his pugs doing this (one adult, one puppy) in a synchronized fashion. Sooooo cute.
posted by beth at 8:45 PM on February 9, 2006

A side note from a project that I had to do for a linguistics class: When you ask people a question that involves a complex answer, they will tend to cock their head toward the side of the brain that they are using. It's not as pronounced as the eye movement, which is a much more significant data point (which way did the eyes go), but it's pretty common.
posted by klangklangston at 9:32 PM on February 9, 2006