opaqueice;180328 Wrote: > We talked about this before on this forum - the hypthesis that the > stress of blind tests reduced people's hearing abilities was termed > "blinditis". It's quite a lot to buy - that people think they can hear > a difference sighted or blind, but when blind they are stressed and > can't actually hear it (even though they think they can), while when > sighted they think they can and are correct. That's far less plausible > and much more complicated than the simple hypothesis of bias, but it's > not impossible. It seems a difficult thing to rule out, but there may > actually be a clever way... > > First use a blind test to determine the sensitivity to, say, a > difference in volume. Now do the same with a sighted test (the > subjects know which is louder - because they can see the volume knobs - > and are asked at what point they cease to be able to hear a difference). > Now there are two possibilities - sensitivity was greater in the blind > test, in which case the blinditis hypothesis is out, or it's greater in > the sighted test. > > In the second case do another sighted test, but secretly reverse the > knobs - so what the subjects think is louder is actually softer. Do > this in the volume range between the two sensitivities, and see what > the results are - do the subjects notice that something is wrong and > the volumes have been swapped? If not, it's pretty clear it was bias > effects that led them to think they could hear a difference when in > fact they couldn't, and therefore the original blind test gave the > correct result (i.e. no blinditis). If on the other hand they do > notice, blinditis exists. I think refinements of this basic idea could > pretty well rule this out or in. > > Of course this is to determine whether it's the blind aspect of the > test that causes the problem; if instead being tested in any way > fundamentally changes our perceptions there's really very little that > can be said.
It's all very interesting, and I hope more research is done in this area. However, I don't think the hobbyists called "audiophiles" should have to keep this in mind every time the would like to endulge in their chosen hobby. -- P Floding No, I didn't ABX it. And I won't even if you ask me. (Especially not if you ask me.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ P Floding's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2932 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32352 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
