[tips] Re: Hearing ringtones (was:: 18-20 kHz and its marketability)

[Marc Carter]

The higher frequencies in a voice signal tend to convey identity of the speaker more than the informational content of the speech signal, and are thus less important for understanding -- which is why Bell Telephone, in the early years decided to have a high-frequency cutoff that caused me, when I was growing up, to be constantly confused with my brothers or my father when someone called the house!   m   ------- "Mauchly's Test of Sphericity: Tests the null hypothesis that the error covariance matrix of the orthonormalized transformed dependent variables is proportional to an identity matrix." --- SPSS   From: Donald McBurney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:41 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Re: Hearing ringtones (was:: 18-20 kHz and its marketability) If memory serves, there isn't much speech information conveyed at higher frequencies, so hearing aids put all their capacity at the lower (important) frequencies. It isn't about high fidelity, but high comprehension.     don     Donald McBurney Peterson, Douglas (USD) wrote: I checked the spec sheet on my daughter's hearing aids and the frequency range ends at 6800 Hz and her loss is more severe in high frequency so presumably her hearing aids should be models that extend into the high range. Doug _______________________________________________ Doug Peterson, Ph.D. Director of University Honors Associate Professor of Psychology The University of South Dakota 414 E. Clark Vermillion SD 57069 Psychology Phone: (605) 677-5295 Honors Phone: (605) 677-5223 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________ From: FRANTZ, SUE [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thu 10/19/2006 8:44 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Re: Hearing ringtones (was:: 18-20 kHz and its marketability) One possibility is that for the purpose of hearing tests, there isn't much concern about hearing loss at such high frequencies. According to Medline, "In detailed audiometry, hearing is normal if tones from 250 Hz through 8000 Hz can be heard at 25 dB or lower." (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003341.htm) Your hearing aid may also cut off the highest frequencies. "Sometimes a satisfactory level of hearing can be restored by a hearing aid - a combination of a microphone to sense ambient sound, an amplifier, and a tiny speaker that projects the amplified sound into the ear canal. A typical modern hearing aid would employ an electret condenser microphone - small and rugged with a high signal-to-noise ratio. The frequency range of application is typically 100-10,000 Hz." (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/hearloss.html#c2) -- Sue Frantz Highline Community College Psychology Des Moines, WA 206.878.3710 x3404 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/ -- Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology Assistant Director for Project Syllabus http://www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/projectsyllabus.html ________________________________ From: Annette Taylor, Ph. D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wed 10/18/2006 8:30 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Re: Hearing ringtones (was:: 18-20 kHz and its marketability) For what it's worth, I tried playing the mosquito ring tone to the students and they all went nuts covering up their ears. I could not hear it. I even turned my hearing aids WAY up high and could not hear it! My hearing loss is fairly severe for low and midrange tones. Supposedly my high tones are intact, so I'm not sure I understand the inability to hear this tone. Annette Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This one didn't make it to TIPS presumably because it was briefly down at the time. Maybe I'll get lucky this time. Anyway, I don't think anyone else replied, and we don't want Lucy to think she's been ignored. ------------- On 16 Oct 2006 at 14:25, Lucy Zinkiewicz wrote: I clicked on an internet ad advertising this ringtone, & discovered that I (at the wise old age of 39) can hear it, & it was painful.<snip> Any thoughts why I might still be able to perceive the tone? Well, off the top of my head, the usual hypothesis for high-frequency hearing loss as we age (and we do, we do) is that it's not an inevitable consequence of aging. Instead, it's thought to be a result of the cumulative damage caused by a lifetime of exposure to noise, especially in an urban environment ( e.g. from subway screeching, street traffic, jet aircraft, ipods, movies, rock bands, blenders, chain saws, lawnmowers, and that's just for starters). It's claimed that those living in non-industrialized, far quieter places, such as in the jungle (near the village, the peaceful village) have excellent hearing into old age. This may apply also out on the tundra and the icesheet, or at least it did. I understand that hearing loss among the Inuit is now of concern since they traded in their harpoons for rifles (see www.teachersdomain.org/resources/tdc02/sci/life/reg/inuithear/index.html So, Lucy, perhaps you can hear those ringtones because you lived a life unusually kind to your ears. Or perhaps you're much younger than you think you are. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 0C8 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english <http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0<=english> --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english