What We Hear

[chassell]

Evidently none of us hear the same things.  Listened to a fascinating podcast today about how sound becomes hearing. Amazing audio examples in the podcast showing how our brains process hearing and how we hear what we expect to hear.   

 

[MicroMara]

There are 7 billion people living on this planet that is 14 billion ears . Each brain and each ear has its own genetic construction, so it is only logical that each person, as far as it deals with music, has an individual hearing sensation. If two people sit in a HiFi studio and listen to the same music, it does not mean that they perceive the same sounds or feel the same emotions. 

[Dave1291]

Huh?  😂

[CWelsh]

I haven't listened to this yet, but it reminds me of a question posed in my introductory philosophy class...can you prove that what you see as orange is actually the same color that I see as orange.

 

I suspect that various branches of science may be able to make pretty convincing contributions to that question, but from a philosophical standpoint, I guess it is valid.

[Islander]

Reality is just what we all agree on, even if each one of us perceives it a little differently.

[Dave1291]

12 hours ago, CWelsh said:

I guess it is valid.

Unless it's not. 

[CWelsh]

8 hours ago, Dave1291 said:

Unless it's not. 

In the tradition of philosophical inquiry, we may need to share a few pints while we argue the issue.

[Dave1291]

Arguments = Work  The pints would just enhance the arguments but I'm down for it if ya wanna!  Could be a hoot!  lol   

[Islander]

I spotted this and thought it might be relevant to the discussion.  I found it just a few minutes ago, so I haven't checked out the included links yet, but they look interesting.  The first one seems to be the same as the one in the Audio Science Review.  I included it because the site itself might be of interest as well as the podcast.

 

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/making-sense-how-sound-becomes-hearing.31387/

 

 

This link is about how our senses are still not fully understood.  It's a 1-page article with some videos, and links to all the Senses podcasts.

 

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/22947671/the-five-senses-touch-hearing-taste-smell-podcast-explainers

[Islander]

On 5/29/2022 at 10:01 AM, CWelsh said:

I haven't listened to this yet, but it reminds me of a question posed in my introductory philosophy class...can you prove that what you see as orange is actually the same color that I see as orange.

 

I suspect that various branches of science may be able to make pretty convincing contributions to that question, but from a philosophical standpoint, I guess it is valid.

 

Certain shades of colour that fall in the range between green and blue look green to me, while others may see them as blue.  It doesn't come up very often, but it makes me wonder which of us is correct, or if neither of us is correct, or is it just an example of how people who are operating within normal parameters have enough built in tolerance/inaccuracy that we can both feel correct, since outside of the Pantone labs, minor things like that are just examples of splitting hairs?

 

Since people who have perfect audio pitch are quite rare, and the rest of us, especially non-musicians, just smile and say "Close enough.", is it also likely that very few people have perfect colour shade "pitch", typically people who need to be able to agree precisely on the colour of whatever they're observing, while the rest of us just smile and say "Close enough"?

 

Here's one more thing:  women seem to have much more precise colour vision than men.  This is obvious enough, in the building where I live, that when there's a situation that calls for finer colour perception than us guys on the Strata Council (called a Condo Corporation in some places) can see or describe, we defer to the women on Council.  When it's time to get the lobby or hallways repainted, they are clearly better qualified to choose the colours and how they harmonize. They have exact names for certain shades and can discuss how many shades of white there are, while most guys can only name a small handful, like White, Off-White, Warm White, Cool White, and that's about it.

 

This, of course, makes me wonder whether people with perfect audio pitch are mostly male or mostly female.  Good thing we have Google...

[Emile]

On 5/28/2022 at 4:52 PM, chassell said:

Evidently none of us hear the same things.

Agree; now the question arises why "some groups of people" love hip-hop, some love country and some love classic rock?  

[jjptkd]

16 minutes ago, Emile said:

Agree; now the question arises why "some groups of people" love hip-hop, some love country and some love classic rock?  

 

[Islander]

Of course, that made me think of this.  After all, it's all in the mind.

 

 

[MicroMara]

There is the objective acoustics , that is the physics ! The psychoacoustics is the hearing, it calculates! And the subjective acoustics takes place in our brain. There the emotions arise.