Don't knock it til you try it

Apparently the head tilt is a sound thing that helps them locate the position of sounds above/below them better. Humans are built different so we don’t need to do that to locate the source.

Or so I’ve heard. A real scientist is welcome to correct me.

Not a scientist, but can confirm, I am built differently than a fox.
- Can confirm. Am not a Scientist Fox.
- I approve this pedantry because I too am not a scientist 👍
- Someone downvoted this. Just thought it was funny, carry on.
Humans have the same issue, we just don't have that same instinct for whatever reason.

Location is determined by the time-of-flight difference in the sound wave between each ear. So if something hits your left ear first, you know that it's coming from the left.

You can't do that when things are above/below.

More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oai7HUqncAA
- You can’t do that when things are above/below.
  
  You obviously have never been near a tree with a singing bird in it. You can definitely tell that the sound comes from above. That’s because the shape of the outer portion of the ear somehow funnels the sound in a way that makes it possible for the brain to determine the origin of the sound.
- I am going to make a guess here, but I think humans might not even require this, we are farely unique (not unique per se, but it is rare i think (just primate family)) in our height class, higher than most quadraped stuff, but not high enough to be of the size of trees, so most noise either comes from above us, or below us, or at same height as us, and mostly heights coming from our own height usually would not be scary. And at small enough distances, we could easily tell source of noise from above or below (purely by being practised to know what source could produce what intensity at what distance) and at a longer distance where the difference would be small (relative to each other) we as may as well consider them same and treeat them same. All hypothesising, but I would guess we would loose the need quickly enough, considering tilting would mess up with our usuall visual processing, which we do much better, it would not be useful to hurt our better skill for something not useful
Maybe we don’t need to, but it feels natural.
That makes sense. Thanks!
Not only does it help with hearing, but with sight as well. Two eyes looking horizontally at an object produce a dataset for the brain to process, but the depth perception is constrained to working in the horizontal plane. Tilting the head expands this into the third dimension, providing a lot more for the brain to work with.
- Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Depth perception is in the Z (depth) axis. It’s neither in the X (horizontal) or Y (vertical) axis. You get the exact same stereo vision depth perception regardless of the orientation of your eyes.
  
  Imagine a triangle with your eyes and the subject at a distance as the points. This triangle can be rotated around the long axis without changing anything. Tilting your head does nothing for visual depth perception.
You’re right! I have a dog breed that is prone to deafness and he had a BAER hearing test. He has partial deafness in one ear, so he always tilts the other side up for hearing. It helps them hear better, and use the ear flaps to “trap” the sound.

It literally might - the stereo audio sensing gets more vertical data (that the brain can combine with visual data into a more fully 3D understanding of things).

It's the same how you (I mean eg cats) move your head from side to side while judging the distances or shapes of the objects slightly further away.
Just a sensor adjustment to literally receive more data on the subject/object from various pov-s.

They wouldn't do this for far away objects.

They wouldn't do this for far away objects.

LOL, I do! (checking parallax on a rifle scope)
Remembered this vid from a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oai7HUqncAA

I dont really like the dude but the videos are informative.
- He is such a fucking american. „Son get a rifle”.

Yes, changing your point of view helps understanding things.

God if only some people could understand that

I do this too. I don't know why

obviously to get more bloodflow on the smarter side
Think I learned it from imitating my dog when I was a kid
yeah same lol
I do it too. I'm autistic and my kind have some non-standard body language and/or other nonverbal stuff, even varied from individual to individual.

One of our three dogs does the head tilt. It is also the one that is not as dumb as dirt.

I love how universal it is that humans do it too

When I drive in darkness and heavy rain, and I want to be certain that there's nothing ahead on the road (e.g. approaching an intersection or an unlit pedestrian crossing), I don't only slow, but I start moving my head, either to the side and back, or forward and back.

While that's human-specific - a fox doesn't have a windscreen they need to erase from their field of view - moving one's sensors around to get a better observation is universal. :)

It's like moving stuff around in a box to make things work or appear differently .... if your head is upright and you can't think past whatever it is you're looking at, you tilt 45 degrees and all the brain mush slops over to one side of your skull and the ideas and thoughts get reset ... if you're still confused, you tilt 45 degrees in the other direction to reset the brain mush again ... and you keep doing that to the brain mush until something starts making sense.

Instructions unclear; now I'm dizzy as well as confused.

It's to hear better

Yes, in fact, it does!

I turn my right ear closer to whatever it is, not sure why though. It could be that I hear better or that's my dominant side somehow but I do it even when what I don't understand is something other than audible info.