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Why Some People Can Hear Silent GIF (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: Some people claim they can hear a thudding sound when the pylon hits the ground and the picture vibrates. Last weekend, Dr Lisa DeBruine from the Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology at the University of Glasgow posted it on Twitter, asking her followers to describe whether they experienced any auditory sensations while watching it. One person who suffers from ringing ears replied: "I hear a vibrating thudding sound, and it also cuts out my tinnitus during the camera shake." Others offered explanations as to why. While another suggested it may have something to do with correlated neuronal activity: "The brain is 'expecting/predicting' what is coming visually and then fires a version of what it expects across the relevant senses. Also explains why some might 'feel' a physical shake."
...is the pylon blue or gold?
Maybe an MRI or brain scan would provide something more conclusive than people self-reporting.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
At first I couldn't hear anything because my speakers were turned off. Once they were turned on I could hear the vibrating thudding sound.
I didn't actually hear anything, but in my mind I was producing a thud every time the pylon hit the ground & the image shook. Gestalt Theory, loosely put, says that your mind tries to fill in the gaps of things you experience. It's like when you look at a painting, and your mind tries to imagine what is beyond the frame by filling it out.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
light travels faster than sound. your brain sees something that it knows will make a loud noise and your ears tense up in anticipation. the tensing of these muscles can be perceived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_reflex
Its similar to the gestalt principle. the brain knows what the sound should sound like, so the brain imagines the sound in place of its absence.
In visual arts the gestalt lets us complete images after only seeing a portion of said image... a simple example is a circle drawn with a dashed line that still looks like a completed circle.
In typography, the gestalt principle is demonstrated when you cover the lower half of the letters in a line of text. the brain can complete the shapes of the letters based on known/historical data, rendering the obstructed text complete within the mind.
...but I do "hear" the thudding in the same sense that I hear my internal monologue. What an odd sensation. XD
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Someone needs to start sharing a video file of this with sound for those of us that have trouble imagining it.
The real question to answer, when they say GIF in their head to they hear it with a soft G like Giraffe or hard G like Guilt?
Its similar to the gestalt principle. the brain knows what the sound should sound like,
I'm pretty sure my brain doesn't really know what a high voltage electric pylon jumping rope sounds like. Maybe that's why I didn't hear anything.
For those of you who have seen this phenomenon, did you also hear the whooshing sound of the wire? I would imagine all of those wire moving through the air at those speeds would be quite audible too.
Am I the only one that hears the pylons tell you to kill the dog, in the voice of your dead grandmother?
... I was to busy laughing. ROTFL.
Serisously, this is prank, isn't it?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Wow. This is my first lead to figuring out something that "bothered" me since I was a kid -- long ago I learned to produce a sort of "rumbling" sound inside my head, by intentionally tensing some muscles. It is really hard to explain as I can't even identify those muscles myself, but I first noticed it when I was doing some silly things with my eyes, like trying to "shake the picture really fast".
I could not search for something I could not describe and I eventually forgot about it. Until I saw this GIF. At first I did not really hear anything, but I definitely felt something like a sound. And then it hit me -- it was a very short burst of the same "rumbling" sound I knew so well.
I took to Google again and found a perfect explanation within like 30 seconds.
So, as far as I can tell, the sound people are hearing is definitely not a "filler" produced by the brain. It's the sound of the tensor timpani muscle contracting in anticipation of a loud sound (that never comes).
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm pretty sure it's acoustic reflex - muscle contractions within your inner ear that dampens your hearing response, caused by anticipation of loud noises, generally your own voice.
I distinctly experience it as some anticipatory pressure, followed by a tightening, then a release, which creates the "sound". (Yeah, I know that also sounds like the geekiest possible description of orgasm.)
I feel a little bit of pressure in my eyes as well when the pylon lands, which I'm assuming is also related. It could also explain the tinnitus effects.