Category: Psychology and perception

Psychoacoustics – An introduction

Ultimately, all sound that we perceive is psychoacoustic. As soon as sound passes through the ears, it stops being a physical phenomena and becomes a matter of perception. What we hear is almost by rule different from what is actually sounding, due to the peculiarities and limitations of our hearing. And what we hear can largely differ from what we think we are listening to, due to the many tricks that perception plays on our awareness….Continue Reading Psychoacoustics – An introduction

What is a Sound bath?

According to the sound bath practitioner Sara Auster: A Sound Bath is a deeply-immersive, full-body listening experience that intentionally uses sound to invite gentle yet powerful therapeutic and restorative processes to nurture your mind and body. Sound Bath by Guadalupe Maravilla Here is a LINK to Maravilla’s project at Creative Time. Sound File of Maravilla’s…Continue Reading What is a Sound bath?

Art installation recreates how our environment might sound to people with Alzheimer’s Disease

The global engineering firm Arup and BLOXAS Architects collaborated on a soundscape installation to demonstrate what our everyday environment might sound like to a dementia sufferer….Continue Reading Art installation recreates how our environment might sound to people with Alzheimer’s Disease

The Beeping, Gargling History of Gaming’s Most Iconic Sounds

THE BOUNCY BEEPS of Pac-Man. The percussive build-up in Legend of Zelda. The effusive gibberish of The Sims. The sounds in videogames tell us to speed up, start over, and of course, to keep playing. But how does one set of beeps so effectively tell you you’ve gained power, while another indicates your character has died? And how, exactly, does someone create the sound of the Dark Knight punching the Joker in the face? The answer: Genius sound design….Continue Reading The Beeping, Gargling History of Gaming’s Most Iconic Sounds

Anna Mlasowsky – Glass and Sound

Anna Mlasowsky is a German-born glass artist who works across many media including video, installation, and performance. As the description below for the project “Resonance” attests, her work with sound emerges from her own challenges with hearing perception. …Continue Reading Anna Mlasowsky – Glass and Sound

An Eyeful of Sound (about synaethesia)

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a goat eating carrots? It’s almost too much, it’s so lovely’ An Eyeful of Sound is a collaboration between animator Samantha Moore, Dr Jamie Ward and a group of people with audio-visual synaesthesia. The people with synaesthesia who are taking part in this project have a strong visual…Continue Reading An Eyeful of Sound (about synaethesia)

The Sounds that aren’t there

http://designingsound.org/2017/02/sunday-sound-thought-58-the-sounds-that-arent-there/ What is the sound of one hand clapping? I remember the day I figured out this riddle as a wee youth, only to see it replicated on an episode of the Simpsons shortly thereafter. Bart and I both thought alike: a clap does not need two hands to make sound, one hand can clap…Continue Reading The Sounds that aren’t there

Notes on Blindness VR

Notes on Blindness is an innovative film that describes John Hull’s descent into blindness. “Alongside the premiere of the feature film, Sundance 2016 saw the unveiling of Notes On Blindness : Into Darkness, an immersive virtual reality (VR) project based on John’s sensory and psychological experience of blindness. Here’s the page for the VR which can…Continue Reading Notes on Blindness VR

Sound and Psychology – Binaural Beats

“Slow modulations called binaural beats are perceived when tones of different frequency are presented separately to each ear. The sensation may show how certain sounds are processed by the brain. -– Scientific American 1973 In 1839, German experimenter Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that illusory “beats” are perceived when pure tones of slightly different frequency are separately…Continue Reading Sound and Psychology – Binaural Beats

Behaves So Strangely

For those of us who have trouble staying in tune when we sing, Deutsch has some exciting news. The problem might not be your ears, but your language. She tells us about tone languages, such as Mandarin and Vietnamese, which rely on pitch to convey the meaning of a word. Turns out speakers of tone languages are exponentially more inclined to have absolute (AKA ‘perfect’) pitch. And, nope, English isn’t one of them. …Continue Reading Behaves So Strangely

Musical Illusions

Ready to hear some trippy stuff? Check out these audio illusions from Diana Deutsch (of Sometimes Behaves So Strangely fame). Explanations for each illusion are at the bottom the post. All the audio and explanations come from Diana Deutsch’s Audio Illusions site, where you can check out her CDs for more brain-bending tracks. And let…Continue Reading Musical Illusions

Torture Methods With Sound: How Pure Noise Can Be Used To Break You Psychologically

Have you ever got a song stuck in your head that you just can’t seem to shake? That catchy piece of music on a recurrent loop in your brain, also known as an earworm, may seem torturous but pales in comparison to actual sound torture employed for military purposes. Sound torture is a type of…Continue Reading Torture Methods With Sound: How Pure Noise Can Be Used To Break You Psychologically

How hacking the sounds in your head could be the key to happiness

“Putting a spring back into your step could be as simple as listening to the sound of lighter footsteps, new research suggests. Scientists at University College London believe it is possible to ‘hear yourself happy’ by changing the noises that the body hears as it moves around. “…Continue Reading How hacking the sounds in your head could be the key to happiness

Songs of War – Music as Torture

Music elates, touches the soul and bypasses reason. Music is magic. But precisely this magic can turn it into an insidious weapon – for music and violence belong together. The brutal power of African war dances, the ferocity of Maori Hakas, the earth-shattering roar of US sound guns blasting Metallica at Taliban hideouts – the…Continue Reading Songs of War – Music as Torture

5 Bizarre Ways You Won’t Believe Sound Screws With Your Body

Science has been messing with light like a middle-school bully since forever: shoving it all together to make a laser beam, bending it to make invisibility cloaks, giving it wedgies until it stops altogether. Maybe it’s time to pick on something else. Might we suggest sound? It doesn’t seem as sexy as light, but by…Continue Reading 5 Bizarre Ways You Won’t Believe Sound Screws With Your Body

99% Invisible – Sound and Feel

Chris Downey explains it like this, “Beethoven continued to write music, even some of his best music, after he lost his hearing…What’s more preposterous, composing music you can’t hear, or designing architecture you can’t see?” Chris Downey had been an architect for 20 years before he lost his sight. It would be understandable to think…Continue Reading 99% Invisible – Sound and Feel