Hi all! First of all I think this a wonderfully interesting thread, and hope I will not be deleted. Reading it I've thought about a few things that I'd like to comment, excuse the length, but here are my 10 cents...
Here is an interesting link: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/02/70179 I think this gives us a pretty good idea about flame wars start. In 80% of the cases, we think that the readers will correctly interpret the tone in our text-based messages, in 50% of the cases they actually, in 90% of the cases believing to be correct. I personally think that both Sean and Mats have been pretty civil throughout the thread, and completely disagree with those claiming that the SD-staff have in any way been exceptionally rude. But, I could of course be misjudging their intended tone... Moving on to the placebo effect. I does seem that Mats hasn't quite understood what that is. The placebo effect in this case is not in any way an effect of fooling yourself that you hear something that you actually don't. It's simply a phenomenon of how the brain processes incoming information, what information is "picked up", and what information is discarded (actually dimensional, not dichotomous). This way of functioning is totally necessery for the brain to be able to distinguish between relevant and non-relevant stimuli. For instance, if you are having a conversation with a friend, while others are talking beside you, you and your friend will actually "not hear" what the others are talking about, that is give their verbal sounds verbal meaning. In this case you would say that the sounds of your friends voice is "clearer" than the sounds of the others speaking. This is a "placebo effect", but no one would say that you are making it up, because you actually can't retell what the others are saying. Another thing with the brain is that is constantly seeking information about that indicates that something "important" is happening. That's basic survival instinct, things that are important should be attended to so that they can be dealt with properly. As things become more important they are also more hightlighted so that attention is more readily focused on them and decisions about what to do can be made quicker. This means that stimuli (like sounds) that _could_ be of the important type, are detected and highlighted so that we can act. If you're expecting a phone call from a girl you would like to date (important!) and listening to music on a high volume, you will constantly be hearing the phone ringing, because sounds in the music that resemble the signal of your phone will be interpreted as such. It's impossible for us to consciously separate real from fake ringing tones, the meaning of the sounds that the brain adds is the only source of information we have! The thing about humans is that we're able to add "importance" to almost any stimuli. If it is important that my new stereo sounds well, any information that can be indicative if this or the opposite will be highlighted and perceived as more audible. So, expecting the sound to be different when you use two different methods of pausing the SB will infact produce different perceptions, your brain will highlight different properties of the sound. To test if Mats experience is a result of selective processing or not, no fancy testing equipment is required. As has been pointed out, he simply has to prove in a blind test that he can more often than chance will accurately say what method of pausing was used. The blind test that Mats performed wasn't that good for a number of reasons (e.g. too small n, dependence between trials), but it's simple to produce one that is. I suggest the following protocol: * Mats is blindfolded, and preferrebly listens to the music with headphones. * A neutral person roles a die, if the result is odd (1,3,5), method 1 us used to pause, otherwise (2,4,6), method 2 is used. * It is important that Mats won't be able to draw conclusions from the time of the pause, therefore the neutral person should press the "play" button at a fixed number of second since pausing the music. * 30 trials are made, and for each trial the number on the die is noted, the method used, and whether Mats correctly identifies the method. Then post these data on the forum, and a simple chi-2 test will reveal to what degree we can be certain if the sound differs or not. Note that being right in only 70% of 30 cases indicates a 97% chance that Mats is correct, so 100% identification is not necessary. I don't think it's unfair to expect Mats to perform this blind trial after all this fuzz, since it is easy and would demand considerably less effort than contacting people with fancy testing equipment. /Brjánn -- brjann ------------------------------------------------------------------------ brjann's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12214 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36503
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