Slashdot Mirror
The 'Loudness' of Our Thoughts Affects How We Judge External Sounds (sciencedaily.com)
The "loudness" of our thoughts -- or how we imagine saying something -- influences how we judge the loudness of real, external sounds, a team of researchers from NYU Shanghai and NYU has found. From a report: Its study, titled "Imagined Speech Influences Perceived Loudness of Sound" and published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, offers new insights into the nature of brain activity. The research project was conducted by Tian Xing and Bai Fan from NYU Shanghai with, David Poeppel and Teng Xiangbin from NYU, and Ding Nai from Zhejiang University. "Our 'thoughts' are silent to others -- but not to ourselves, in our own heads -- so the loudness in our thoughts influences the loudness of what we hear," says Poeppel, a professor of psychology and neural science. Using an imagery-perception repetition paradigm, the team found that auditory imagery will decrease the sensitivity of actual loudness perception, with support from both behavioural loudness ratings and human electrophysiological (EEG and MEG) results.
I wonder if it works the other way as well where when in a noisy environment you need to think "louder" to concentrate on your own thoughts. I'm reminded of the expression "It's so loud in here that I can hardly hear myself think" which may have more truth to it than originally thought.
When the voices in my head starts yelling at me it sounds like everyone is yelling and they don't stop until I put down the baseball bat.
I once spent three days on Smith Island, the quietest spot in the Eastern US, to see if an extended time of quiet would help soothe my stress. No cars. No stores. Just the fishing fleet leaving pre-dawn and returning at dusk. In between, nothing but the sound of the surrounding Chesapeake Bay and the wind on the willows by the shore.
Every day I was there, I could detect fainter and fainter sounds. On my last day, as I was sitting on the front porch staring at the water, I noticed a very distinct hum. I looked all over for the offender, only to discover that it was the electric motor in the ceiling fan overhead.
I don't think that my physical hearing senses became sharper, obviously. I think what happened is that my mind was able to perceive them because they weren't competing with all the other sounds I was filling my head with. I can well imagine that pre-loading your perceptions with internal talk will make you less observant of external sounds, just as this study shows.
Oh, and the rest cure worked really, really well. I try to get at least a couple of days of complete silence at least once a year now. Very restorative.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
...you need to think "louder" to concentrate on your own thoughts. I'm reminded of the expression "It's so loud in here that I can hardly hear myself think"...
TFA has me confused. My head's just full of perfectly normal, deafening, background screams. The psychic I went to started crying. It's OK as long as I don't start hearing voices, right?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.