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Hearing quality and musical taste [this be sereyus thred] (pg. 6)
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| neatski |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
Ok, lets clear some things up. First of all there is no knowledge (or knowledge that i'm aware of) that the cochlea of the ear in which the sensory-receptors are situated(organ of corti)changes in more efficient ways in response to sound. The only change that occurs is a proportional loss of receptors (hair-cells) with age, the one that smellyblack talked about (by the way, is smellyblack another ElFreak alt lol?).
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Just to play devil's advocate :), I am in grad school for hearing science and audiology, and there's actually a whole lot of research going on right now that suggests otherwise. There is evidence that experience does sharpen the way your cochlea responds to sound. It occurs through the efferent pathway, which is a neural bundle that originates in the temporal lobe (which contains auditory cortex) and descends through the vestibular portion of the 8th cranial nerve. The efferent pathway appears to influence the way your outer hair cells respond to sound. Outer hair cells aren't the sensory cells that actually conduct sound information to your auditory nerve, but they can cause big changes in the way the cochlea physically responds to sound and therefore influence the way your inner hair cells transduce sound to nerve signals. Currently, they're thought of as "tuners."
One of my professors here is doing research on auditory evoked potentials that has demonstrated a significant effect of experience with frequency (ex: music training) on the strength of certain neural reflexes in the efferent pathway, suggesting they may influence cochlear tuning. One of my other professors is doing similar research in psychoacoustics, showing changes in sound perception when the reflex is activated.
And now my soap box! Hearing acuity declines rapidly with noise exposure. Most clubs' noise levels are above 100 dB, which have the potential to cause hearing loss within 5 minutes of exposure. Wear your ear plugs!!! |
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| habman6 |
| quote: | Originally posted by neatski
Just to play devil's advocate :), I am in grad school for hearing science and audiology, and there's actually a whole lot of research going on right now that suggests otherwise. There is evidence that experience does sharpen the way your cochlea responds to sound. It occurs through the efferent pathway, which is a neural bundle that originates in the temporal lobe (which contains auditory cortex) and descends through the vestibular portion of the 8th cranial nerve. The efferent pathway appears to influence the way your outer hair cells respond to sound. Outer hair cells aren't the sensory cells that actually conduct sound information to your auditory nerve, but they can cause big changes in the way the cochlea physically responds to sound and therefore influence the way your inner hair cells transduce sound to nerve signals. Currently, they're thought of as "tuners."
One of my professors here is doing research on auditory evoked potentials that has demonstrated a significant effect of experience with frequency (ex: music training) on the strength of certain neural reflexes in the efferent pathway, suggesting they may influence cochlear tuning. One of my other professors is doing similar research in psychoacoustics, showing changes in sound perception when the reflex is activated.
And now my soap box! Hearing acuity declines rapidly with noise exposure. Most clubs' noise levels are above 100 dB, which have the potential to cause hearing loss within 5 minutes of exposure. Wear your ear plugs!!! |
That is some interesting research...what university? |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by neatski
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hmm,
interesting regarding reflexive behavior of the ear.
either way, it's still subject to interpretation by the brain, which could either improve or reduce hearing ability depending on the person's brain |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
I don't need to do this, since I will die anyways. My training has only just begun. But do you mean to tell me that my father, who had a stroke, was any less conscious or had any less identity or soul, even with only half of his brain in working order? I don't think so. The brain is a tool for spiritual progress as well as scientific inquiry, and I would prefer to use it to its maximum potential. |
Oh off. I have no intention of arguing with something so obviously personal. I made it clear at the start what I think about the existence of souls, and you carry that through. Perhaps you should consider who really believes something to help them sleep at night though.
PETRAN: I was under the impression that your IQ score remains the same throughout your life. True or false? |
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| Trance-MB |
| quote: | Originally posted by neatski
And now my soap box! Hearing acuity declines rapidly with noise exposure. Most clubs' noise levels are above 100 dB, which have the potential to cause hearing loss within 5 minutes of exposure. Wear your ear plugs!!! |
It's not only the noise level, but also the frequency which matters. Listening mp3 too loud is a much bigger problem than visiting clubs IMO, because people start listening at a much younger age and more frequently.
France limited the mp3 player volume level by law.
I guess the decline will be much more compared to the increase in whatever why. The decline is easy to prove, but the increase more looks like searching a needle in the haystack for evidence, but that's just a feeling I got. |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by habman6
Very nice - good for you. I'm following a somewhat similar route: biochemistry and physiology, and potential neuroscience PhD.
This thread really got me thinking about music elitism, and how some proclaim how certain genre's are better or worse. In the end it all comes down to what you personally perceive, and what is appealing to the individual. It just so happens that perception evolves (due to many factors) |
Yeah, Neuroscience PhD is the ! With the background that you have you can go to more molecular/cellular neuro as well, which i also find very interesting. Stuff like synaptic plasticity/brain repair/growth and long-term potentiation are very hot, but very cotnroversial and complex as well. So, its an exciting time for Neuroscience heh.
I think that taste is a bit of an ambiquous subject, thats why i try (as you say) not to consider some genres superior to some others (which is a bit hard the truth is). In a matter of fact, no matter how hard i try, i would always have an automatic negative bias towards e.g. r'n'b or Britney Spears. Its always difficult to consider what the objective criteria are(if there are any) for "quality". I always find people suggesting some genres to be superior to others mainly for subjective/relative/cultural reasons.
The problem is that it is not just a matter of perception, its a matter of perception of aesthetics. This is an extremely difficult subject IMO. I don't think that anybody has answered the question of whether aesthetics are universal or cultural/relative. And if they are both to what degree. A very difficult subject.
By the way, if you are interested in neuroscience, you should learn about some neuroscientific hypotheses/models for aesthetics (if you don't already know them). I'm aware of two interesting ones. One is proposed by Zeki and one by Ramachandran. Zeki's one is a very simplistic explanation based on the "functional organization" of the brain (check-out his book called "Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and The Brain") and Ramachandran's model is another simplistic evolutionary-behavioural one (he had an interesting article in Scientific American called "The Neurology of Aesthetics"). Both reflect this exciting new field and how little we know about aesthetics from a scientific perspective as well. Ofcourse these are mainly focused on visual aesthetics, there is also this guy- Daniel Levitin- who is both a musician and cognitive scientist/neuroscientist who has made some pioneering research on the perception of music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Levitin
He has a milestone book in the area called "This is Your Brain on Music. The Science of a Human obsession". I haven't red it yet, but i so want to damn!
| quote: | Originally posted by neatski
Just to play devil's advocate , I am in grad school for hearing science and audiology, and there's actually a whole lot of research going on right now that suggests otherwise. There is evidence that experience does sharpen the way your cochlea responds to sound. It occurs through the efferent pathway, which is a neural bundle that originates in the temporal lobe (which contains auditory cortex) and descends through the vestibular portion of the 8th cranial nerve. The efferent pathway appears to influence the way your outer hair cells respond to sound. Outer hair cells aren't the sensory cells that actually conduct sound information to your auditory nerve, but they can cause big changes in the way the cochlea physically responds to sound and therefore influence the way your inner hair cells transduce sound to nerve signals. Currently, they're thought of as "tuners."
One of my professors here is doing research on auditory evoked potentials that has demonstrated a significant effect of experience with frequency (ex: music training) on the strength of certain neural reflexes in the efferent pathway, suggesting they may influence cochlear tuning. One of my other professors is doing similar research in psychoacoustics, showing changes in sound perception when the reflex is activated.
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This sounds (pun?) very interesting! I admit that i'm not aware of such specialised audiological research. I mean if you open a physiology or neuroscience textbook you are not going to find the information you provide heh. So you say that the brain (mind) can affect the outer hair cells in a top-down manner through this efferent pathway? Do you know maybe of the kind of perceptual changes that occur and to what degree? My impression is that such reflexes are used-as you say- to "tune" some things up (maybe some "frequencies" which experience has made them "important" to the brain) but they don't contribute substantially to the final perception or recognition. Very cool research nevetheless. :)
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
PETRAN: I was under the impression that your IQ score remains the same throughout your life. True or false? |
True. The general consensus holds that IQ remains stable after 18-20 years of age (as reaction time and working memory capacity). it is true that the mean IQ of the latest generations has increased, a fact known as the "Lynn-Flynn" effect. Researchers have attributed this change to various factors, including the increased quality of nutrition, education and the increasing complexity of the environment. If an individual is exposed to these factors from an early age, he/she would have a higher chance to end-up with a higher IQ in comparison to the previous generation (but not necessarily so).
But unfortunately, things in science are not always black and white! So, latest research has suggested that rigorous training in some specific IQ-like working memory tasks can increase the IQ scores of adults for those specific tasks!( but only for a few weeks) The change (whilst it lasted) was actually a mean 4-point difference in comparison to an individual's previous scores, a statistically but not practically significant difference. Also, those types of tests didn't demonstrate any change on other types of IQ such as reasoning ability. So, during adulthood, whislt IQ scores can change, they don't seem to change significantly, for all types of IQ and for long-enough times no matter how extensive training is. But more research is needed. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
True. The general consensus holds that IQ remains stable after 18-20 years old (as reaction time and working memory capacity). it is true that the mean IQ of the latest generations has increased, a fact known as the "Lynn-Flynn" effect. Researchers have attributed this change to various factors, including the increased quality of nutrition, education and the increasing complexity of the environment. If an individual is exposed to these factors from an early age, he/she would have a higher chance to end-up with a higher IQ in comparison to the previous generation (but not necessarily so).
But unfortunately, things in science are not always black and white! So, latest research has suggested that rigorous training in some specific IQ-like working memory tasks can increase the IQ scores of adults for those specific tasks!( but only for a few weeks) The change (whilst it lasted) was actually a mean 4-point difference in comparison to an individual's previous scores, a statistically but not practically significant difference. Also, those types of tests didn't demonstrate any change on other types of IQ such as reasoning ability. So, during adulthood, whislt IQ scores can change, they don't seem to change significantly, for all types of IQ and for long-enough times no matter how extensive training is. But more research is needed. |
That was my point. One of the commonly held ideas of IQ test advocates is that your IQ score remains the same. I don't think that's true. I think that if I spent my entire life doing IQ tests I'd develop a higher IQ than if I never did so. |
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| neatski |
| quote: | Originally posted by habman6
That is some interesting research...what university? |
University of West Suburban Church of Christ Kansas City.
Haha, no, a reputable one: Purdue. We've got a kick ass department here :), and we collaborate with the engineering department a lot to pull off some amaaaaaaaazing projects. I love it.
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
either way, it's still subject to interpretation by the brain, which could either improve or reduce hearing ability depending on the person's brain |
I agree in general, but replace "hearing ability" with "hearing perception."
| quote: | Originally posted by Trance-MB
It's not only the noise level, but also the frequency which matters. |
Yup, BUT even just one night of exposure to 100 dB+ noise can cause permanent damage. They have done research on iPod use and have found that max volume is also within the dangerous level range. Frequency of exposure definitely plays a role.
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
This sounds (pun?) very interesting! I admit that i'm not aware of such specialised audiological research. I mean if you open a physiology or neuroscience textbook you are not going to find the information you provide heh. So you say that the brain (mind) can affect the outer hair cells in a top-down manner through this efferent pathway? Do you know maybe of the kind of perceptual changes that occur and to what degree? My impression is that such reflexes are used-as you say- to "tune" some things up (maybe some "frequencies" which experience has made them "important" to the brain) but they don't contribute substantially to the final perception or recognition. Very cool research nevetheless. :)
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As they say: eyes look, brains see. Perception is all in the brain and the ears are just transducers. However, the efferent pathway is pretty much established in literature at this point (check out a recent book like Introduction to the Physiology of Hearing, 3rd ed., by Pickles). What ISN'T established is what can kick the efferent system into action (besides noise), how exactly it affects perception, and how experience affects its response. At this point, you're right- we don't have sufficient evidence to say that it substantially affects perception in a meaningful way. But I think that's where it's headed. As I said, differences in the efferent pathways in people who have music training (or speak tonal languages like Mandarin, for that matter) suggest that there is some perceptual importance to sharpened cochlear tuning (and whatever else the efferent pathway affects, which could be brainstem level processing). Otherwise, we wouldn't find those differences. |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
That was my point. One of the commonly held ideas of IQ test advocates is that your IQ score remains the same. I don't think that's true. I think that if I spent my entire life doing IQ tests I'd develop a higher IQ than if I never did so. |
Yeah, in the strict sense this can happen. As i said though, even after lots of training (and no matter the degree of training after a certain point) you are probably not going to increase your IQ more than 4-5 points. In addition, if you quit the training you'll probably fall again after some time! Ofcoruse as i said before we are talking about fluid intelligence here. Crystallized one can probably change any time and probably to any degree. Crystallized intelligence is probably based on the hippocampus and other related structures of long-term memory and storage of knowledge. Those structures seem to have a high degree of plasticity.
Fluid intelligence on the contrary is based on the same control (executive) structures that govern attention, reaction time and working memory such as the dorsal prefrontal lobes. Whilst these structures show plasticity, they somehow have vary stable functions. E.g. working memory capacity of 4+-1 (working memory also known as "short-term memory" is a temporary memory store that lasts for a few seconds and it is responsible for manipulating information e.g. holding and manipulating the arithmetic results whilst you progress through a mathematical problem or remembering and "adding" the meaning of the previous written sentence with the one that you read now) doesn't change during adulthood at all and it is universal for all humans. People can enhance their working memory by employing more efficient long-term memory strategies and mnemonics, not by increasing working memory capacity in itself.
So working memory is the basis of fluid intelligence and thats why you'll not see it change a lot. The small change is probably not attributed to the fact that fluid intelligence has changed in itself. Its probably because new flexible startegies are employed, hence pushing it by a few degrees.
Ofcourse, IQ tests also have a crystallized component as well and as i said before, this can always change e.g.with education. This is why IQ tests are always referred to in relation to the person's educational level :)
| quote: | Originally posted by neatski
University of West Suburban Church of Christ Kansas City.
Haha, no, a reputable one: Purdue. We've got a kick ass department here , and we collaborate with the engineering department a lot to pull off some amaaaaaaaazing projects. I love it.
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Wow, do you guys study creationism there? :tongue2 (im just kidding lol)
| quote: | | As they say: eyes look, brains see. Perception is all in the brain and the ears are just transducers. However, the efferent pathway is pretty much established in literature at this point (check out a recent book like Introduction to the Physiology of Hearing, 3rd ed., by Pickles). What ISN'T established is what can kick the efferent system into action (besides noise), how exactly it affects perception, and how experience affects its response. At this point, you're right- we don't have sufficient evidence to say that it substantially affects perception in a meaningful way. But I think that's where it's headed. As I said, differences in the efferent pathways in people who have music training (or speak tonal languages like Mandarin, for that matter) suggest that there is some perceptual importance to sharpened cochlear tuning (and whatever else the efferent pathway affects, which could be brainstem level processing). Otherwise, we wouldn't find those differences. |
Yeah man i believe you haha. I just asked if you know about the differences. This really looks very promising. It wouldn't be surprising if this mechanism was a physiological long-term change of the chronic effects of attentional processes or perceptual segregation. Check this abstract, it could be of some relevance.
http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...nline&aid=28755
:toocool: |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Oh off. I have no intention of arguing with something so obviously personal. |
that would be a first for you |
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