Fullmental Alpinist Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 Rather the human auditory cortex is actually reconfigured by the sounds it experiences. Wow, that alone is worth the price of admission. What changes? The shape? The number or frequency (or both) of the hairs that pick up the vibrations (assuming that's how it works)? The wiring to the brain? The brain itself? Tom, your posts are always informative and your fireplace should be on the national registry. FMA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 The analog mind wobbles Whereas the digital mind freezes........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpbiii Posted November 28, 2014 Share Posted November 28, 2014 Wow, that alone is worth the price of admission. What changes? The shape? The number or frequency (or both) of the hairs that pick up the vibrations (assuming that's how it works)? The wiring to the brain? The brain itself? Tom, your posts are always informative and your fireplace should be on the national registry. FMA The new and currently exciting area has to do with processing in the auditory cortex -- the brain itself. The amazing properties of the inner ear (cochlea, basilar membrane, hair cells amazing ability as a physical spectrum analyzer) were first researched in the 1930s (von Beke'sy got the Nobel prize for that in 1960) and the signal processing capacities of that organ have been widely researched and used since (critical bands, two tone masking, loudness thresholds, etc.). I used a lot of that theory in my work starting in the 1970s, and it gave us such things as MP3, etc. Because of the way that works, we have a lot of insight on why we prefer the spectral properties we do -- i..e music. What I was talking about is work that is more recent -- work that shows that learning can change what we actually hear and perceive. This has to do with how the brain interprets the neural signals coming from the inner ear. A good example of how powerful this can be is recent (and now wide spread) work on suppressing tinnitus -- ringing in the ear. That is usually caused by an actual oscillation at particular points on the basilar membrane -- every point on the membrane is associated with its own auditory frequency. Each region on the membrane, along with its associated hair cells, is actually a high gain feedback amplifier -- this is why we can distinguished 13 orders of magnitude differences in amplitude. Well what happens is the system breaks, feedback occurs, resulting in a perpetual oscillation. It is a real tone -- you can pick it up with a microphone at the outer ear. The signals are delivered to the brain and we hear ringing forever. Well generally we do not know how to stop the process, but the new work on the power to learn in the auditory cortex has found how to train the brain so it ignores the ringing -- it is still there, but we can no longer hear it! The therapy is to a wide band signal (white noise is the fastest but music will do) to the ear in which a notch filter is used to zero out any input signal at the ringing frequency. After a while, the ringing goes away -- totally cancelled by the brain. If you think about the big picture, this is not too surprising. We are born with lots of senses we don't really know how to use, but we learn how very quickly. The new science here is for hearing, how much of this is done in the brain itself. And that is why even though I like 80/20s on most everything, I can't recommend it for everyone . Best, -Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fullmental Alpinist Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Thanks, Tom! Fascinating stuff that. FMA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortyearspickn Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Whereas the digital mind freezes........ 10000111000000111101.....2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKing777 Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 10000111000000111101.....2 Ha! Wait til a computer geek realises he can use octaves and then scales instead of just 0s and 1s and then Decimal!!! There'll be some computer power then..... I always wonder if Tom gets physical help lugging all those guitars out, and their cases....I was hot and bothered the other day after photos of four guitars.... BluesKing777. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fretplay Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 It's like a "12 step" program for alcoholics….but there are strings attached….. Ah! Gas now I understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorrisrownSal Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 10000111000000111101.....2 Ha - made my day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 ....I was hot and bothered the other day after photos of four guitars.... <_< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.