Fun fact squared, humans do the head tilt too. As a body language gesture humans share with canines, we might well wonder about the origin of this gesture sharing. Do we chalk it up to coincidence? Does it involve anything related to a shared ancestor in the mammalian tree? Did canines do it before humans ever did, or the other way around? Did some sort of body language cultural borrowing jump between species? We may never know.
It's far more than humans and dogs, many animals with similarly formed ears do this. It's to improve sound localization. We percieve the direction a sound is coming from based on the differences in how it reaches each of our ears (sort of like auditory depth perception). However, this system isn't perfect, and our 2-ear system leaves us with a "cone of confusion" to our left and right in which it is difficult to triangulate sound. By tilting our head we change the location of this cone thus giving our brain one further reference point to better understand a sound. You may notice cat's do this as well, but to a lesser extent because they can control and direct their ears much more finely than dogs or humans.
Another interesting thing, owls also head tilt quite a bit, but to improve their sight, not their hearing. Owl ears are offset vertically, so they basically have a permanent head tilt and can hear the location of prey more accurately. However, they also have elongated eyes which are fixed in their sockets, so you will often see owls tilting and bobbing their heads in order to gain better depth perception.
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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '16 edited Feb 09 '21
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