San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday)

‘Third Ear’ is about how we listen to others, even without words

It ought to be a publishing industry rule: Any book that uses “science” in its subtitle must include at least one piece of research that is both astonishin­g and kind of gross. Elizabeth Rosner’s “Third Ear: Reflection­s on the Art and Science of Listening” easily clears this bar.

“Whale earwax is stored in layers,” she writes. These “accumulate as hardened plugs for the entire lifetime of a whale” and contain “the stress hormone cortisol.” In the words of a Baylor University scientist who analyzed the wax, the cortisol levels indicate “survivor stress” caused by “the indirect effects of whaling, including ship noise, ship proximity and constant harassment.”

Such warning signals will go unheeded unless we listen to the world around us, Rosner argues. Her “third ear” is metaphoric­al, of course, a phrase borrowed from Theodor Reik, a student of Sigmund Freud’s who believed “third-ear listening” could enable the psychoanal­yst to hear “what is expressed almost noiselessl­y” and “know things without knowing that he knows them.”

In other words, pay attention. That’s the core message of the Berkeley writer’s brisk, collage-like book, a blend of memoir, her interviews with attentive people from various profession­s and findings from scientific studies. “I believe that third-ear listening can offer solace for my/ our existentia­l ache of loneliness,” she writes.

Rosner has a talent for flagging science-related tidbits

This book exudes an irresistib­le brand of eagerness — for knowledge,

for the perspectiv­es of strangers, for tomorrow and the day after.

that suggest we can sharpen our attentiven­ess by observing animals. Owls, she writes, use mimicry to ward off mortal danger, while some bats and birds “have been recorded using so-called baby talk” with their offspring.

But in trying to synthesize a lot of informatio­n, she sometimes suggests that debatable findings are accepted facts. She writes, for instance, that some “humans practice empathy” less than a half-hour after birth. This implies that there’s scientific consensus on the matter; there isn’t.

In previous books, Rosner has written beautifull­y about her family; her parents are Holocaust survivors. It’s no surprise, then, that the most confident, lyrical parts of this book focus on the importance of listening when confronted by personal challenges,