An outstanding TV show about the senses and hearing

[Tom Danley]

If you get the science channel don’t miss an outstanding TV show about the senses.
If you’re interested in how we hear, how our senses interact, don’t miss this show.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/special.html?paid=48.15725.131211.0.0

Best,
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs

 

[MylesBAstor]

If you get the science channel don’t miss an outstanding TV show about the senses.
If you’re interested in how we hear, how our senses interact, don’t miss this show.

http://science.discovery.com/tv-schedules/special.html?paid=48.15725.131211.0.0

Best,
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs

Thanks for the heads up Tom. Will set the DVR to record it, that is once Time Warner gives me a new one because the old one crapped out. Funny thing: my high-end audio equipment is 100X more reliable than these stupid cable boxes Have gone thru more of them than can count

 

[Steve Williams]

I watched the show. It was very good as they talked about "synesthesia" especially one part where a blind man can drive a bicycle by making sounds with his mouth similar to what a bat does.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I watched the show. It was very good as they talked about "synesthesia" especially one part where a blind man can drive a bicycle by making sounds with his mouth similar to what a bat does.

Yeah they determined the killer because he mimicked a blind person using clicking on I think either a Criminal Minds or something

 

[Tom Danley]

This was a good program I think. I think anyone who scoffs at “blind testing” would be wise to watch it also as it shows a number of examples of how ones senses are tied together and based largely on expectations and prior knowledge.

The chef’s in training were unable to identify the flavors of the drinks when they were the wrong color. The McGurke (sp) demonstrated the sound you hear depends on what you see the mouth saying, to hear the sound accurately (correctly), one literally had to close your eyes to block the visual stimulus.
It was interesting too that they identified that “what we consciously see” is about 80-90% prior knowledge and only 10-20% based on real visual information.
Our senses or how we experience them are largely based on expectation and prior knowledge in the same way. As James Burke suggested, when we see something new, our interpretation of it is based on what we already know.
Best
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs

 

[MylesBAstor]

This was a good program I think. I think anyone who scoffs at “blind testing” would be wise to watch it also as it shows a number of examples of how ones senses are tied together and based largely on expectations and prior knowledge.

The chef’s in training were unable to identify the flavors of the drinks when they were the wrong color. The McGurke (sp) demonstrated the sound you hear depends on what you see the mouth saying, to hear the sound accurately (correctly), one literally had to close your eyes to block the visual stimulus.
It was interesting too that they identified that “what we consciously see” is about 80-90% prior knowledge and only 10-20% based on real visual information.
Our senses or how we experience them are largely based on expectation and prior knowledge in the same way. As James Burke suggested, when we see something new, our interpretation of it is based on what we already know.
Best
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs

Sorry but I'd argue that it's the unreliability of short term memory that has limited storage space That where the bottlenecks occur because of the serial processing into long term memory.

 

[Tom Danley]

Hi Myles
Yes ones acoustic memory is short, the reason one cannot go by comparisons made on different days or times.
Conversely, many believe in spite of this, that one has to “get used” to whatever it is before making a judgment.

The point I was making was that one’s sense are tied together.
For example the actual chefs in training were unable to identify the flavors when the color conflicted with what they expected.
With the Mcgurk effect, even when you know the fact, what you think you hear is dependent on what you see.
To actually hear the sound as it is, one must block the visual input.

http://www.wimp.com/mcgurkeffect/

The show and a test;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/interactives/isseeingbelieving/
James Burk (connections 1 and 2, the day the universe changed) described how we understand, it is based on what we already know.
He described an early philosopher and a student that was bashing the ancients for believing that the sun went around the earth. The philosopher said “yes, but what would it look like if the earth did go around the sun” (exactly the same). What the student knew, governed what he saw / how it was interpreted.
The message from the show or one anyway is I think that just like a hearing test or vision test, if you want to know what the sense in question actually picks up, one must remove other inputs and prior knowledge.
Best,
Tom

 

[JasonI]

Some really good reading on the subject of preconception can be found in The Emotion Machine by Marvin Minsky. Another book by Lakoff and Johnson called Philosophy in the Flesh is also good, but tangential to this conversation. Also, it's a tome so I recommend The Emotion Machine as a good starter.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Hi Myles
Yes ones acoustic memory is short, the reason one cannot go by comparisons made on different days or times.
Conversely, many believe in spite of this, that one has to “get used” to whatever it is before making a judgment.

The point I was making was that one’s sense are tied together.
For example the actual chefs in training were unable to identify the flavors when the color conflicted with what they expected.
With the Mcgurk effect, even when you know the fact, what you think you hear is dependent on what you see.
To actually hear the sound as it is, one must block the visual input.

http://www.wimp.com/mcgurkeffect/

The show and a test;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/interactives/isseeingbelieving/
James Burk (connections 1 and 2, the day the universe changed) described how we understand, it is based on what we already know.
He described an early philosopher and a student that was bashing the ancients for believing that the sun went around the earth. The philosopher said “yes, but what would it look like if the earth did go around the sun” (exactly the same). What the student knew, governed what he saw / how it was interpreted.
The message from the show or one anyway is I think that just like a hearing test or vision test, if you want to know what the sense in question actually picks up, one must remove other inputs and prior knowledge.
Best,
Tom

Well it sure sounded like me you were coming down on those who were against blind testing, not the interaction of the senses. I'd be glad to talk about why blind testing doesn't work either considering everyone disregards the volumes of literature out there about the biology of testing and hearing and memory and learning and adaptation.

 

[Tom Danley]

Myles
I am not clear about what you’re saying, is it that blind testing doesn’t work at all, or just doesn’t work marketing hifi equipment? I am not coming down on those against such testing but suggested there are good reasons to consider it and doing so does no harm.

My point I suppose was that here are a number of good examples of how the senses are tied together, how what we see, hear and taste is governed in part or even largely by what we already know / expect and what our other senses tell us. These are reasons that support the “how and why” of blind testing.

For the end user at home, these things may not be important as what ever increases ones listening pleasure really is fair game. For the person making products that other people will use, that is another story as strangers will not have ones “prior knowledge” and is left forming an impression based mostly / entirely on what your ears and eyes and marketing tell you.

As blind testing has a stigma in this area, lets change the name to testing without prior knowledge for a bit. There are examples of testing without prior knowledge all around us.
For example, when you do a vision test, you try to read smaller and smaller letters.
Notice words are NOT used even though you read words, the reason is they want to remove any “prior knowledge” and if you used words, peoples vision (because of the ability to guess the letters) is greatly improved compared to random letters which depends entirely on making out each letter individually reflecting only ones visual acuity.

In a hearing test, one sits and signals when you hear the sound. There is no red light that goes on, there is no visual contact with the person running the test, there are no clues to the presence or absence of the test tone, you must depend only what your ears alone can tell you. If there was a visual signal too, like a red light coming on each time, like the tester winking at you, the test results are much better, better because they included more than just your hearing alone.

In commercial sound, there is a similar test, intelligibility. A series of random words (usually 200) are used, the score depends on how many words you could make out correctly. Here It doesn’t matter how “realistic” or natural sounding the words are if you can’t hear what word it is. Here it doesn’t matter what you know about the speaker or what you can see, only what you can hear governs the ineligibility.

With the McGurke effect, one hears the sound correctly when one’s eyes are closed but when the eyes are open, you hear what corresponds to what you see.
While the scientific rigor needed to do medical or other full out scientific testing is high, the usefulness of it can be realized at a much simpler level.
For the curious, comparing amplifiers, electronics, cables CD players etc all one needs is a way to quickly / instantly switch between A and B and not know which was which.

One does the test when you feel like it, not under pressure or hurried. You do it on your own equipment in your own room at your leisure. I found that searching through recordings to find passages that “brought out” differences and then using these when switching back and forth was most useful.

In auditioning amplifiers for example, it was interesting that the formerly large audible differences some “heard” going into it, were often greatly reduced greatly when the amp in question was “unknown” and did not return when switching back to the known condition and this was emotionally distressing for some.
For that reason, I wouldn’t suggest doing these kinds of tests in the home unless one is prepared to possibly lose some of the ”magic” part. But if you’re doing product engineering and want to hear the actual differences limited to the sound reaching your ears, then this can be useful weeding out differences especially when it involves a great deal of money.

If you really can’t hear the difference between A and B, how valuable is this change? If you could clearly hear a big difference before the test but not after, what does that tell you about what you were hearing before? If you can still hear a difference without prior knowledge, was there any harm or risk in simply trying the test?

Sure one can do the test incorrectly or in a biased way or argue that the end user doesn’t need to or even shouldn’t separate these things, but this doesn’t change the fact that when they test your senses, this IS how it’s done.
Best,
Tom Danley