Where is Audio Truth ?

[Paul R]

Again, you are jumping off on some odd track.

 

Certainly the visual conponent makes a tremendous difference in what people hear- did I not reference at least two other examples of this not related to the McGurk effect?

 

So what possible relevance can this have to audio listening where no- absolutely no - video trickery is in involved?

I will answer that for you, absolutely none. The effect you are using as a reason to distrust your ears does not exist in audio listening.

 

Further, the video trickery needed to trick you into hearing false information does not, so far as I can determine, exist in nature.

 

The same effect, when used to augment your hearing and provide you with more accurate information from what you hear also does not apply in audio listening, save in home theater applications.

 

Paul

 

I'm not sure how you could ignore the obvious rebuttal to that?

Your comment has no bearing on the McGurk effect, in fact you are entirely ignoring it.

If you OPEN YOUR EYES, you HEAR something DIFFERENT. THAT is the McGurk effect.

Yet the SOUND is NOT different. (Unless you have a theory of how your exposed eyeball moisturizes the room and affects sound propagation?)

 

 

 

In fact, you've already acknowledged my central point, so I'm not sure why you'd want to backtrack.

"Hearing something else when your eyes are opened" and "your ears are being fooled" are synonymous statements. How can they be anything else?

 

If you wish to argue that it is impossible in principle for someone's ears to be fooled, then we're back to denying objective reality again, and there's no point in us building a conversation on that foundation.

[mayhem13]

This says more about you than others IMO...

 

At least I'm honest with myself and other here on CA....more than I can say for you unfortunately.

[Paul R]

I granted that video trickery can fool one's perceptions. I do not grant that the same kind of trickery exists when the video stimulus is not present.

 

You are not presenting a reasonable substitute for the video trickery in relation to purely audio listening. Indeed, younare saying that because perceptual distortion exists in one limited situation, it must be present, in similar degree in another totally unrelated situation.

 

That is not a rational argument.

 

 

Hi Paul, I have already addressed that question. I am not saying that speakers have lips. For your convenience, I will repeat what I already wrote.

[Jud]

I always figure that when disputes start wandering off into the more general sorts of things, it becomes easier to get into semantics and personalities, which seems to be happening.

 

Deep, cleansing breaths. Even better, specifics.

 

Darren, can visuals affect what we hear from our audio systems? Sure. Expectation bias, whether caused visually or otherwise? Sure. Does this prove whether specific instances of hearing or not hearing differences result from bias? Nope. So we've got further to go as soon as we discuss anything specific.

 

Paul, I'd submit whether the McGurk effect is a more or less specific analog to audio does not make for the most interesting audio question. Does our thinking as to sound quality have the potential to be affected by visuals (how components look, for instance)? Yep. OK, let's move on.

[Don Hills]

... I was reffering to closing one's eyes when being presented with an example of the McGurk effect. In that specific case, the effect is utterly eliminated, and because of that, I suggest the effect has a purely visual cause. I could be wrong on that, but I have not seen any compelling evidence to make me reconsider that yet. ...

 

I agree, the McGurk effect has a purely visual cause. Its relevance here is only that it illustrates how powerful an influence visual input can be on the perception of audio. In the Audirvana version comparison case presented by Jud and Superdad in another thread, it would have required them to be presented with two visually identical pieces of software, labeled "A" and "B". Regarding expectation bias, the developer would have also needed to be careful to have avoided setting any expectation by implying that one was more recent or more developed than the other. (I don't know if he did or not, it's not relevant, it's just to point out how careful one needs to be to set up a comparison that stands up to skeptical scrutiny.)

[Jud]

I agree, the McGurk effect has a purely visual cause. Its relevance here is only that it illustrates how powerful an influence visual input can be on the perception of audio. In the Audirvana version comparison case presented by Jud and Superdad in another thread, it would have required them to be presented with two visually identical pieces of software, labeled "A" and "B". Regarding expectation bias, the developer would have also needed to be careful to have avoided setting any expectation by implying that one was more recent or more developed than the other. (I don't know if he did or not, it's not relevant, it's just to point out how careful one needs to be to set up a comparison that stands up to skeptical scrutiny.)

 

Hi, Don. We certainly knew the build we liked was more recent than previous ones. However, we'd known that about all the preceding ones we didn't like as well.

 

Our mutual favorite had been a build that came out in early May, I believe, in the 1.4.x.x series (1.4.9.7 specifically). There were four more builds in the 1.4.x.x series after that. Then there were at least 3 builds in the 1.5.x or 1.5.x.x series that we (and a lot of other Audirvana Plus users - check the CA forum threads) thought were a step back in terms of sound quality. Damien then privately sent us 1.5.2.3, which we liked, and publicly issued 1.5.3, which we again liked, me not as much as 1.4.9.7, Superdad perhaps a little more than 1.4.9.7, and 1.5.4, which Superdad disliked, and I thought was not a step forward at least.

 

So that was the history that set whatever expectations we had for 1.5.5, which we both independently thought was a big step forward from any previous build we'd heard. Obviously a smooth upward curve leading straight to that conclusion, right?

[Paul R]

Very well stated.

 

So, is there any other non-visual mechanism or operator that would have a similar effect on Jud and SD's evaluation? I have strong reservations that expectation bias could be the cause, for multiple reasons. It can be a powerful operator, but the care each took in listening, and the very similar results of each person's evaluations argue against it.

 

That is, to me at least, a bit of a puzzle. Indeed, blind testing would probably produce some interesting results, but probably not conclusive ones.

 

I agree, the McGurk effect has a purely visual cause. Its relevance here is only that it illustrates how powerful an influence visual input can be on the perception of audio. In the Audirvana version comparison case presented by Jud and Superdad in another thread, it would have required them to be presented with two visually identical pieces of software, labeled "A" and "B". Regarding expectation bias, the developer would have also needed to be careful to have avoided setting any expectation by implying that one was more recent or more developed than the other. (I don't know if he did or not, it's not relevant, it's just to point out how careful one needs to be to set up a comparison that stands up to skeptical scrutiny.)

[mayhem13]

I have strong reservations that expectation bias could be the cause, for multiple reasons. It can be a powerful operator, but the care each took in listening, and the very similar results of each person's evaluations argue against it.

.

 

Not sure I'd agree with you here. While Jud makes a compelling arguement, I haven't read anything that indicates a carefully executed sampling to eliminate bias but instead, some casual comparisons between two members with some addition observations from family or friends.......which may prove to be the cornerstone of a significant breakthrough in these discussions, true. There's still plenty of work to be done before moving to the proof phase.

[esldude]

You imply you have a different more correct viewpoint and my reasoning is specious.

 

I think you are simply rationalizing, rather than looking at facts.

 

Please explain how, in your reasoning, you find the McGurk effect, which is clearly triggered only through an unnatural visual stimulus, to be a factor in audio listening where no such visual stimulus exists? I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but right now your entire chain of reasoning appears irrelevant to me.

 

YMMV.

 

 

I already did explain as have Don Hills and DarrenMC.

 

You posit hearing is more accurate and less easily fooled than vision. And you did so in a general sense, not just specifically to one instance like say the McGurk effect. DarrenMC's picture with the two lines is a variation on vision being fooled. Senses can be fooled. Hearing is not inherently more accurate or above reproach than vision.

 

So there are a series of examples possible showing similar levels of being fooled by other input for all of our senses. Indicating vision functions with some loopholes just the same as the other four senses. Another example off the top of my head, put one hand in ice water, and one in very warm water. After 60 seconds put both in lukewarm water. One hand will feel very hot, and one quite cold. Senses do get fooled. Artificial flavoring is an example for taste, there are artificial scents. Such effects are common for all the senses.

[Bob Stern]

Classical Music Competition Winners chosen by Visual, not Audio, Performance

 

Competition winners could be reliably chosen by watching video without sound, but could not be chosen by listening to sound without video!

 

Even the judges, who were eminent classical musicians, could not avoid precedence of visual over audio assessment! So much for experienced listeners avoiding bias from non-audio stimuli.

 

Abstract:

Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance

 

Full text (PDF download):

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/16/1221454110.full.pdf

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

But your ears are lying to you (or if you prefer, your brain is lying to you about what your ears are hearing): the sound is unchanged. The visual information has not made your hearing MORE accurate, it has made it LESS accurate. When you get the visual clue, are indeed "hearing" what you expect to hear, but you are not hearing what is actually THERE. And the distortion introduced by your mind is not subtle, it's stunning, in fact I found it downright creepy the first time I experienced it.

 

The McGurk effect is a baseball bat sized wallop of proof upside the head that your mind can fool you into thinking that two identical sounds are very different, if your mind has some non-audio information that it "thinks ought to matter". I leave the applicability of that observation to debates about bit-identical files sounding "different" (where people may expect that "everything matters" and thus they "ought to sound different" as an exercise for the reader.

 

Wlel it semes not olny the eras can be felood but voiosn has its fiar srhae of tkicrey aslo. So if you can raed tihs deos tihs maen yuo are mroe or lses an audlhpioie ? Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer in waht oredr the Itteers in a wrod are,the olny iprmoatnt tihng ¡s taht the frist and Isat Itteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and

you can situ raed ¡t wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey Iteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Seriously, Darren I think you may be 'looking' at this the wrong way. All our sensory perceptions are a complex amalgamation of one or more modalities that get combined in the brain with other processing centres (cognitive-evaluative, emotional, memory….) to create a perception. The incoming signal is the beginning of the story not the end. As people studying central auditory processing disorders ( like some sorts of dyslexia) say, it is what the brain does with the incoming signal that is important.

What I am saying is that the final result is just as real to the beholder and can be compared to other beholders that may share their reality. I think it is wrong to necessarily think of perceptual phenomena as "illusions". I have no real problem with this word except to say it is misleading in that the connotation is more in line with "delusion". Illusion is real whereas delusion is not, except in a philosophical epistemological way.

The brain is not hard wired for sensation but has a wonderful neuroplasticity to modulate, for better or worse, sensations. Over time this modulation can change the underlying structures conveying sensations.

So one needs to reconcile an apparent disconnect between the physical stimulus, the incoming transduced physiological signal and the actual perceived sensation. Anywhere in the chain can be altered to change the outcome and each step is equally valid. Each has its own 'reality', it just depends on where you sample it.

Some people can hear more into music than others, their perception is simply better whether by gift or by training, selective attention etc. It’s a fact. It is equally undeniable that some people's perceptions are strongly psychologically influenced eg by the price tag. It is frustrating, to some, that we can not as yet reliably, validly, sensitively, specifically tell the difference between the groups (DBT's have been already discussed). As I see it, be sceptical, sure, but at the same time acknowledge that what many audiophiles (or musicians) hear may be because they are just more skilled at doing it.

[Jud]

Classical Music Competition Winners chosen by Visual, not Audio, Performance

 

Competition winners could be reliably chosen by watching video without sound, but could not be chosen by listening to sound without video!

 

Even the judges, who were eminent classical musicians, could not avoid precedence of visual over audio assessment! So much for experienced listeners avoiding bias from non-audio stimuli.

 

Abstract:

Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance

 

Full text (PDF download):

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/16/1221454110.full.pdf

 

Yep, this came up in another thread. I thought it was tremendously interesting, but did not have time to read the entire article. One significant item I did read was that looking at still photos rather than video conferred no advantage in picking winners. So there was something in the videos as opposed to stills that came through.

 

A question I asked in that regard on the other thread, but don't recall seeing an answer for, was if the people who did the experiment mentioned whether the videos were good enough to see body language cues - competitors looking like "I've nailed this!," versus "Oh, damn!" Or perhaps it may have been something as simple as physical flourishes and showmanship. Don't know whether the experimentalists said anything in the write-up about this or other possible explanations for the results, and would be very interested to know if they did, if anyone else here took the time to read the whole article.

[Jud]

Wlel it semes not olny the eras can be felood but voiosn has its fiar srhae of tkicrey aslo. So if you can raed tihs deos tihs maen yuo are mroe or lses an audlhpioie ? Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer in waht oredr the Itteers in a wrod are,the olny iprmoatnt tihng ¡s taht the frist and Isat Itteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and

you can situ raed ¡t wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey Iteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

 

And you can still spot where auto-correct has been in action ("...you can *situ* raed wouthit...").

 

Some people can hear more into music than others, their perception is simply better whether by gift or by training, selective attention etc. It’s a fact. It is equally undeniable that some people's perceptions are strongly psychologically influenced eg by the price tag. It is frustrating, to some, that we can not as yet reliably, validly, sensitively, specifically tell the difference between the groups (DBT's have been already discussed). As I see it, be sceptical, sure, but at the same time acknowledge that what many audiophiles (or musicians) hear may be because they are just more skilled at doing it.

 

I am *very* reluctant to buy into this "golden ears" philosophy too much. My wife, who cannot carry a tune in a bucket, nor after several years of watching every week repeat back accurately the closing line of each show by our favorite TV chef ("Tutti a tavola a mangare" - Lidia Bastianich), easily hears differences between, for example, USB cables. I think the reason some people hear differences in certain items in the chain and others don't may have a lot to do with their systems and the environments in which those systems operate. I am not talking about some simplistic "more transparent/less transparent" division. Rather, I'm thinking of instances where people say they don't hear much if any difference from software oversampling, and then you find their DACs do ASRC, i.e., resampling regardless of input frequency. Or of a former forum member who said he could hear no reliable differences among USB cables, but then heard a pronounced difference when he introduced a better power supply. (I would expect in general that people with less noisy power, and with DACs specifically built to be less subject to external noise sources, would hear less of a difference between USB cables, which are of course electrical wires.) I think, in other words, that there are plenty of specific system and environment differences available to explain most of the differences in what we hear, without resorting to dividing the world into good and bad systems, or "golden ears" and lumpenproletariat.

 

OK, will climb down from the soapbox now.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

 

I am *very* reluctant to buy into this "golden ears" philosophy too much. <snip> I think, in other words, that there are plenty of specific system and environment differences available to explain most of the differences in what we hear, without resorting to dividing the world into good and bad systems, or "golden ears" and lumpenproletariat.

 

System explanations and hearing perceptual explanations for differences likely co-exist.The fact that some people hear better, hear more, run faster, jump higher...is all part of human variability.

 

My wife, who cannot carry a tune in a bucket, nor after several years of watching every week repeat back accurately the closing line of each show by our favorite TV chef ("Tutti a tavola a mangare" - Lidia Bastianich), easily hears differences between, for example, USB cables.

 

why is this surprising? Expression of a tune is different to recognition of a tune. Not all are equally gifted, some have great voices (tone,range..) but poor pitch.Expression and reception of language for example are very different areas of the brain.

 

Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance

 

This is (oddly perhaps) not really that surprising....have you ever watched American Idol ? There was one year that nobody in the top ten could sing in tune. I found it amazing that the judges and audience successfully selected 10 without talent out of 100,000. Notwitstanding,the fact that many things contribute to our appreciation of a performance is to be expected.

 

I read the article quickly but felt uncomfortable with their conclusions.I dont think one can conclude that visual information is dominant in our decision making per se from this type of experiment, but rather an associated finding.

 

"the fact that novices are able to quickly identify the actual competition winners at such high rates through silent videos alone" obviously means that things other than music were being judged, I agree. The most visually engaging,good looking, or whatever visual parameters sway the judges might be due to listening with their groins and loins rather than their ears you think ? My hunch is that most singing competitions produce so few real vocal talents that it is much easier to just pick on looks and personality which seem to separate the contestants much more easily.

[mav52]

S

"the fact that novices are able to quickly identify the actual competition winners at such high rates through silent videos alone" obviously means that things other than music were being judged, I agree. The most visually engaging,good looking, or whatever visual parameters sway the judges might be due to listening with their groins and loins rather than their ears you think ? My hunch is that most singing competitions produce so few real vocal talents that it is much easier to just pick on looks and personality which seem to separate the contestants much more easily.

 

I think that show is more about who is more marketable with the talent they have..

 

The 'Voice' starts off with the judges picking contestants by sound only (not visual) but then follows the same path once people see the contestants.

 

Sight vs sound: perfect example: Britain's Got Talent ( Susan Boyle) when the judges and audience pre-judged her based on looks only. Boy where they wrong.

 

 

 

I think people hear what they want to hear and/or hear what they feel is important or have the ability to hear. Sure people can call them goldenears, audiofools, weekday forum members who like to see their comments in writing, audiophiles, audio salesman or just some Joe enjoying music who just spent a $1000 for a USB cable and for all he's worth he wants to hear a difference. All I know, this topic has been debated more than Global warming around the world.

[Paul R]

Let's turn the question around and look at it from the other way around, perhaps that will help us understand just how much of a factor expectation bias might have been in this specific case.

 

What evidence is there that expectation bias is swaying their evaluations?

 

-Paul

 

 

Not sure I'd agree with you here. While Jud makes a compelling arguement, I haven't read anything that indicates a carefully executed sampling to eliminate bias but instead, some casual comparisons between two members with some addition observations from family or friends.......which may prove to be the cornerstone of a significant breakthrough in these discussions, true. There's still plenty of work to be done before moving to the proof phase.

[Jud]

System explanations and hearing perceptual explanations for differences likely co-exist.The fact that some people hear better, hear more, run faster, jump higher...is all part of human variability.

 

why is this surprising? Expression of a tune is different to recognition of a tune. Not all are equally gifted, some have great voices (tone,range..) but poor pitch.Expression and reception of language for example are very different areas of the brain.

 

She doesn't know she's out of tune. Good or poor pitch has been found to be related to ability to learn a foreign language (the reason I gave the example of an Italian phrase my wife - father born in Italy, mother first generation Italian-American, both grandmothers who babysat her as a child spoke exclusively Italian - cannot retain despite having heard it repeated dozens of times).

 

 

"the fact that novices are able to quickly identify the actual competition winners at such high rates through silent videos alone" obviously means that things other than music were being judged, I agree. The most visually engaging,good looking, or whatever visual parameters sway the judges might be due to listening with their groins and loins rather than their ears you think ? My hunch is that most singing competitions produce so few real vocal talents that it is much easier to just pick on looks and personality which seem to separate the contestants much more easily.

 

This is the way inaccurate tropes get started and become accepted common wisdom that "everyone knows." The article said two things that specifically contradict this notion (which certainly was top of mind as a possible explanation for me, too):

 

(1) Participants were asked to rate the physical attractiveness of the contestants. Physical attractiveness was not related to winning above the random level (i.e., more attractive won at the same rate as less attractive).

 

(2) Still photos gave participants no advantage in selecting winners, while six second videos did give an advantage. Thus there must be something beyond looks or anything else that can be discerned from a photo (e.g., gender) in those videos that is responsible for the advantage they give.

 

It's precisely these facts that make the study interesting to me. If it was merely "better looks get better reactions," that would hardly be a particularly incisive or curious result, would it?

[drez]

@audiophile neuroscience the OP is one of the best articulated insights into the issue of truth in hifi audio. Usually in a debate about technical performance of hifi components, especially contentious subjects like cables, jitter, computer audio etc. it is fairly obvious that people hold a specific viewpoint for a reason, be it their trade, technical knowledge, or just their way of thinking or problem solving. As OP writes, typically the more certain or positive statement indicates a very specialised knowledge, but not necessarily a viewpoint which takes into consideration a wide range of ways of looking at a topic.

 

We are trained to problem solve in specific ways, and we tend to apply these skills and knowledge into other fields. Typically where this becomes a problem is where it leads to insistent reductive thinking, typically to debunk what is clearly such a ridiculous topic that is not even worth discussing. Certain fields and professions are trained to see things in very concrete terms, certain parameters are ruled out very early in order to focus on areas that are more important. In certain professions I'm sure this is advantageous, but I would hope this isn't the mindset used to design hifi components, or anywhere really.

 

On the other hand the complete naivety of most audiophiles to the technical workings of their expensive equipment can also be seen as a good thing or a bad thing - bad in that often audiophiles will select components that have poor performance and inaccurately make sense of what they are hearing or not hearing.

 

There is also a good side to audiophile naivety, although there is a tendency to actively seek differences to hear, there is also an open mindedness or receptivity to the sound (well hopefully the sound and not suggestion from marketing or the internet). This far in my journey I am inclined to believe that they are hearing things, even if double blind tests are effective at making them appear to be fools. What they are hearing on the other hand is dependant on a million factors, psychological factors being just one, and unfortunately all too convenient hypothesis for the seemingly ridiculous claims. I would like to think that most people are genuinely interested in the sound quality of their hifi, however I also think that in some circles improving the ultimate quality of hifi components is not the central concern, I'll just leave it at that.

 

Measurements are for me at least very important, they can provide very reliable information about aspects of performance so large that a simple machine can detect the differences. This doesn't mean that they can detect everything, or that data can understood by a layperson, just that performance aspects that are unmeasurable are surely smaller than those that can be measured? Similarly the blind test can discriminate the performance factors which are large in magnitude enough to overcome the unreliability of human perception, memory and hearing. Naturally larger performance factors are, in my mind at least, quite important relative to smaller performance factors, however as OP states there is also the possibility that we are measuring the wrong thing, or the wrong way.

 

So is there truth in the anecdotes of audiophiles, or the a-priorised theories of "experts" (any self respecting expert I have met will readily acknowledge the limits of his/her expertise)? Personally I think there is truth in all of these, but each of them is partially true and partially untrue. They all contain part truths in as much as they can contribute useful information to selecting and assessing hifi components with high performance. All the meaningless data of conflicting audiophile banter, measurements and technical discussion can contribute meaningful insight if one understands the underlying encryption algorithm to separate the noise, and then interpret what's left over.

[Paul R]

No Dennis - you have not. Please provide an example where hearing is "fooled" as you say, without a visual input to trigger it. Remember, there is no visual input in the test that Jud and SuperDad ran.

 

This should be a simple and reasonable request for you, if indeed, as you posit, hearing is as easily confused as vision. If not, then I stand by my suggestion that hearing is more difficult to "fool" than vision. I am quite willing to be convinced, but to do so, you need to provide some solid evidence somewhere. Not just extrapolation based upon a visual trick or other senses. That is conjecture and opinion. If you want to present that, please label it as such, then nobody will argue with you.

 

I hope that is clear, because quite simply, I believe you are wrong and it seems to be less and less valuable to discuss this with you. We are talking about listening to an audio-only source, not vision or tactile sense as you keep using for an example. Though, I do grant you, all of the senses share parts of the brain and perception is always influenced by more than one sense, there is little or no evidence I can find to support your thinking.

 

-Paul

 

 

 

 

I already did explain as have Don Hills and DarrenMC.

 

You posit hearing is more accurate and less easily fooled than vision. And you did so in a general sense, not just specifically to one instance like say the McGurk effect. DarrenMC's picture with the two lines is a variation on vision being fooled. Senses can be fooled. Hearing is not inherently more accurate or above reproach than vision.

 

So there are a series of examples possible showing similar levels of being fooled by other input for all of our senses. Indicating vision functions with some loopholes just the same as the other four senses. Another example off the top of my head, put one hand in ice water, and one in very warm water. After 60 seconds put both in lukewarm water. One hand will feel very hot, and one quite cold. Senses do get fooled. Artificial flavoring is an example for taste, there are artificial scents. Such effects are common for all the senses.

[Jud]

No Dennis - you have not. Please provide an example where hearing is "fooled" as you say, without a visual input to trigger it. Remember, there is no visual input in the test that Jud and SuperDad ran.

 

This should be a simple and reasonable request for you, if indeed, as you posit, hearing is as easily confused as vision. If not, then I stand by my suggestion that hearing is more difficult to "fool" than vision. I am quite willing to be convinced, but to do so, you need to provide some solid evidence somewhere. Not just extrapolation based upon a visual trick or other senses. That is conjecture and opinion. If you want to present that, please label it as such, then nobody will argue with you.

 

I hope that is clear, because quite simply, I believe you are wrong and it seems to be less and less valuable to discuss this with you. We are talking about listening to an audio-only source, not vision or tactile sense as you keep using for an example. Though, I do grant you, all of the senses share parts of the brain and perception is always influenced by more than one sense, there is little or no evidence I can find to support your thinking.

 

-Paul

 

Top 10 Incredible Sound Illusions - Listverse

 

Music special: Five great auditory illusions - life - 24 February 2008 - New Scientist

 

Auditory illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

- for starters.

[Paul R]

These are more along the lines of what I was thinking of- do you feel that any of them might have been operating during your testing?

 

I doubt that A+ is inserting shorts bursts of high intensity noise to make the sound more continuous and musical, but it is possible. That should easily show up in digital measurements. Something to test for and eliminate as a cause!

 

-Paul

 

 

Top 10 Incredible Sound Illusions - Listverse

 

Music special: Five great auditory illusions - life - 24 February 2008 - New Scientist

 

Auditory illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

- for starters.

[Jud]

These are more along the lines of what I was thinking of- do you feel that any of them might have been operating during your testing?

 

I doubt that A+ is inserting shorts bursts of high intensity noise to make the sound more continuous and musical, but it is possible. That should easily show up in digital measurements. Something to test for and eliminate as a cause!

 

-Paul

 

The references are just with regard to the general proposition that hearing is less subject to being "fooled" than other senses (cited to show it is very unlikely hearing is less subject to being fooled as a general proposition).

 

Specifically with regard to the listening impressions Superdad and I had, I don't believe that what I've related is sufficient at all to be called proof. Folks here are very sincerely interested in what if anything exists to alter sound "beyond bit perfect" because it would be nice to learn a little more about what causes sonic differences than we're currently able to, with our twin handicaps: (1) not being leading audio electronic/software engineers; and (2) not being privy to the juicier bits of leading intellectual property that are necessarily closely held.

 

I think what I've related is sufficient to spark some interest, which it has. But we're still in very early days on a long road here (I just spent a weekend at a party with co-workers and looking at carpets with my lovely wife rather than running Dennis' test file, which I think I would really rather have done - the party was enjoyable, though I can't quite say as much for the carpets).

[Jud]

By the way, since we're talking about illusions, I never like to miss the opportunity to cite this one:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hAXm0dIuyug

[Robert Hutton]

She doesn't know she's out of tune. Good or poor pitch has been found to be related to ability to learn a foreign language (the reason I gave the example of an Italian phrase my wife - father born in Italy, mother first generation Italian-American, both grandmothers who babysat her as a child spoke exclusively Italian - cannot retain despite having heard it repeated dozens of times).

 

 

 

 

This is the way inaccurate tropes get started and become accepted common wisdom that "everyone knows." The article said two things that specifically contradict this notion (which certainly was top of mind as a possible explanation for me, too):

 

(1) Participants were asked to rate the physical attractiveness of the contestants. Physical attractiveness was not related to winning above the random level (i.e., more attractive won at the same rate as less attractive).

 

(2) Still photos gave participants no advantage in selecting winners, while six second videos did give an advantage. Thus there must be something beyond looks or anything else that can be discerned from a photo (e.g., gender) in those videos that is responsible for the advantage they give.

 

It's precisely these facts that make the study interesting to me. If it was merely "better looks get better reactions," that would hardly be a particularly incisive or curious result, would it?

 

Interesting analogy.

 

However, in judging physical attractiveness (for the opposite gender in my case), there is no doubt that measurements are very important.

 

I can usually get a fairly close approximation from a photograph or video.

[Superdad]

However, in judging physical attractiveness (for the opposite gender in my case), there is no doubt that measurements are very important.

I can usually get a fairly close approximation from a photograph or video.

 

What do you measure? Jitter? Signal-to-noise? THD? And how to you correlate your measurements with real world comparability? Come on, there is whole population of lonely audiophiles waiting to learn these secrets to objective objectification!