A new study from researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow now finds that the brain enlists help from the ears when helping a person see the world.

The reasoning behind this finding is actually pretty simple. The visual cortex, the part of the brain obviously involved with sight, uses the information given with sounds to predict what it’s about to see, the Medical Daily reported. “So, for example, if you are in the street and you hear the sound of an approaching motorbike, you expect to see a motorbike coming around the corner. If it turned out to be a horse, you’d be very surprised,” Professor Lars Muckli, from the Institute, said in a press release. 

The researchers learned about the definitive connection between the visual cortex and the ears’ job after performing five experiments with the help of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In one experiment, for example, the researchers asked participants to listen to three different sounds, like birds singing, traffic, and a group of people talking. With the MRIs, they were able to see that the brain’s early activity visualized the source of the sounds. In a second experiment, they were able to produce the same results by only imagining the source, sans the sound and sight of it.

“This research enhances our basic understanding of how interconnected different regions of the brain are,” Muckli said in the release.   The findings will also help the researchers better understand sensory perception in people with schizophrenia and autism, both of whom experience either sharpened or dulled senses.  

The findings also provide us with a story of our past. The researchers believe that the origin of the connections come from our need to survive.