What is the aural equivalent of colour blindness?

[Guest]

Are two babies likely to be able to hear exactly the same things?

Pretty obviously not yet some people dismiss reports from others who can hear things that they can not.




Do these women all hear the same things?

I think it would be foolish to assume that they do based simply on the ear lobe size and location. What about every other component of the ear, the skull, the throat and the operation of the brain?

Few of us have perfect pitch and quite a few can't hold a tune at all but most of us still enjoy music. Are some of us hearing things quite differently from others? Are we actually enjoying different aspects of the music? If we exclude 'keeping up with the Joneses' and wily salesmen, is that why some people are prepared to spend good money on hifi but others dismiss them as deluded?

Many of us are colour blind and often have better acuity instead - so we certainly see things differently. What is the aural equivalent of colour blindness and is there any proof that we hear things differently?

[Pabmusic]

This is not quite an answer to the OP, but it's very relevant:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/13/experience-blindness-echolocation-daniel-kish?INTCMP=SRCH

And here's Richard Dawkins's take on it, with a very interesting and tantalising question (which doesn't have a direct answer):

http://www.richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2013/7/14/-seeing-with-the-ears-can-bats-hear-in-colour

What we call colours (red, green, yellow) are the results of different stimulations of sensors, which in turn cause the brain to construct a model of what is happening. Colour is not actually a property of the electro-magnetic spectrum, rather than a property of our brains, which use 'colours' to model the effects of light. Presumably the brain models sounds, too, though I'm not sure in what ways.

[Gordon]

Not sure about this. I know people that are colour blind, mostly men and they have a green/red problem which is tricky at traffic lights!! Talking to them about it it seems that rather than being "blind" to these colours they confuse them. They know an object has colour but they cannot resolve which colour it is if it is red or green. Strangely they don't seem to have a problem with yellow on TV which is an illusion made of a mix of red and green; one would have thought the confusion would lead to the sensation of yellow but it doesn't, they seem to see grey. Colour TV does not make true electromagnetic yellow but the eye does see yellow if stimulated by monochromatic electromagnetic radiation of the right wavelength.

So the equivalent with sound? It might imply that people are not deaf but cannot resolve certain sounds precisely leading then to mistake one for another perhaps? I don't know of aural equivalents of this red/geen confusion, the ear doesn't seem to work the same way as eyes do but the inner ear does have these banks of resonators and I suppose they could get mixed up.

Taking this one step further and harking back to our discussions on the speaker lead thread, there is the phenomenon of synaesthesia of course where eg sounds invoke colours in those people that have the ability. I don't, that's for sure.

It does imply that there can be some internal connections in the brain that share experiences among the senses. I suppose there can be cases where someone can touch a complex texture that stimulates an associated sound or a colour? So when we are listening in a concert say we all have some way of sharing the sensations even though it may be low level?

[Hornspieler]

I must ask my younger daughter. She claims that she is the only girl ever to be slung out of her school choir - and both of her parents professional musicians!

Do you remember that lovely ditty by Flanders and Swan?

"I'm Tone Deaf. Can't tell a B from an F!"

I can only remember the last few lines:

: ... as dear old Sir Thomas once said to the harp; "that's either B natural or bloody B sharp or else I'm Tone ^ Deaf!"

HS

[MrGongGong]

You probably have this ?

http://musicophilia.com/

[salymap]

I must ask my younger daughter. She claims that she is the only girl ever to be slung out of her school choir - and both of her parents professional musicians!

Do you remember that lovely ditty by Flanders and Swan?

"I'm Tone Deaf. Can't tell a B from an F!"

I can only remember the last few lines:

: ... as dear old Sir Thomas once said to the harp; "that's either B natural or bloody B sharp or else I'm Tone ^ Deaf!"

HS

Oh I don't remember hearing that Flanders & Swann number HS. I went to several of their shows in the 1950s, 'At the Drop of a Hat', etc. Perhaps they hadn't written it then.

[Nevalti]

This is not quite an answer to the OP, but it's very relevant: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...sh?INTCMP=SRCH

Wow!

[mercia]

Do you remember that lovely ditty by Flanders and Swan?

"I'm Tone Deaf. Can't tell a B from an F!"

I can only remember the last few lines:

: ... as dear old Sir Thomas once said to the harp; "that's either B natural or bloody B sharp or else I'm Tone ^ Deaf!"

very small print, but this is it

http://www.nyanko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fas/misc_ear.html

though Sir Thomas seems to have been changed to Charles Mackerras

[Nevalti]

...I know people that are colour blind, mostly men and they have a green/red problem which is tricky at traffic lights!! Talking to them about it it seems that rather than being "blind" to these colours they confuse them.

I am officially red/green/brown colour blind and simply can not pass or cheat the Ishihara tests yet I can easily tell the difference between the colours IF the colour sample is big and well lit OR against a white background. Unless I am within about 4 ft, I stand no chance whatsoever of seeing red berries on a holly tree - for example. For navigation at sea I have to use coloured filters (a 'Seekey') in order to reliably tell the colour of a buoy or other navigation lights but I'm not allowed to fly (as pilot) at night. I think I could cope but I would really struggle to tell by their port & starboard lights if another plane was coming towards me or away from me . The other slight problem, not detected by the Ishihara test, is that I can not distinguish the pink lights on a visual glide slope indicator.

My question was really aimed at trying to find if these differences exist in our hearing as well. I suspect that they do. It would certainly explain why some people think that hifi enthusiasts are deluded.

[Gordon]

As has been pointed out above, colour is just another label among several that characterises an object perceived through the eye. Two otherwise identical busses in London may be recognised by sighted people through the property of their colour - Red for normal say and Green for the old Greenline outer suburban lines. I do not see how blind people could do that.

Without sight someone like the Guardian example or Dawkins' bat rely only on sound so I can't see how the echolocation process can find the "colour" or even apply a textural equivalent in sound, it's a property that does not belong in the sound world. There is no harm in a bat applying the label "colour" to some property of an object but it is not the same thing as light.

If light wavelength defines colours then perhaps sound wavelengths - ie pitch - could define "sound-colour". So a strong long wavelength reflection, offering the ear a kind of spectrum view of the world that excites its low frequency/pitch sensors, corresponds to "Red" and short to "Blue". So our Guardian man clicks away, emitting wide spectrum radiation, but gets back responses that perhaps his ears can analyse well enough to work out the properties of objects around him. Typically though, like radar, short wavelengths help find small scale objects, or the fine texture of an object, better than long ones which then implies that wavelengths in echolocation only give an idea of size. Again like radar, more sophisticated techniques have evolved eg chirp where the emitted pulse sweeps over a frequency band. Perhaps bats use this method too.

If the Guardian man had remembered sight well enough before losing it there is the possibility that his brain could use that residual experience to say: "that "sounds" like an old British telephone box and I know they are "red"". He'd get it wrong in Ireland but it wouldn't matter for practical purposes.

Going back to the bus example I doubt that echolocation would help the chap get on the right London bus because he could not get the route number from it until he gets on board and that lovely lady announces which route the bus is taking: "59, to Streatham Hill, Telford Avenue". It's funny that every time I'm on the bus in London she's on the same one - I think she's stalking me. I'm sure her sister works for South West Trains.

[Gordon]

My question was really aimed at trying to find if these differences exist in our hearing as well. I suspect that they do. It would certainly explain why some people think that hifi enthusiasts are deluded.

I suspect that part of this apparent variability in the ability to hear small differences in sound stimuli is down to the individual. The parallel with colour blindness though is inverted; the sight defect is rare whereas the rarity in HiFi enthusiasts seems to be an enhanced sensitivity, not a defect. I wonder if, in the general population, the occurrence of colour blindess is similar in scale to that of enhanced auditory skill? I doubt that the stats exist.

Maybe people are drawn into HiFi because that skill is at work and becomes "extremist" when the skill is particularly strong - and vice versa!!

Maybe the other parallel is wine? I have a friend who was a professional industrial chemist [no, not a pharmacist] and he has a very good sense of smell that I don't share at all. What it means is that when we share a bottle he seems to get all sorts of flavours from the bouquet that I don't get at all or very weakly. Is he making it up - how should I know!! What I do know is that he spends lots more money on a bottle of wine than I do!!

[antongould]

Oh I don't remember hearing that Flanders & Swann number HS. I went to several of their shows in the 1950s, 'At the Drop of a Hat', etc. Perhaps they hadn't written it then.

Off topic - apologies ....I went to pick daughter up from Chester-le-Street station on Sunday and, as you do, looked it up in Wiki and was amazed to find it was mentioned in Slow Train by Flanders and Swann......

" No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat,
No Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street"

Wonderful.......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Off topic - apologies ....I went to pick daughter up from Chester-le-Street station on Sunday and, as you do, looked it up in Wiki and was amazed to find it was mentioned in Slow Train by Flanders and Swann......

" No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat,
No Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street"

Wonderful.......

As I recall, the first contestant to win £500,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire missed becoming its first millionaire because he didn't know which County Chester-le-Street is in. Having done my very first teaching practice at King Street Primary School in Spennymoor, I knew the answer.

Much good it did me.

It also occurs to me that those 8 & 9 year-olds will now be in their forties!

[antongould]

As I recall, the first contestant to win £500,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire missed becoming its first millionaire because he didn't know which County Chester-le-Street is in. Having done my very first teaching practice at King Street Primary School in Spennymoor, I knew the answer.

Much good it did me.

It also occurs to me that those 8 & 9 year-olds will now be in their forties!

You are correct Ferney....a lot of screaming at the screen in Wor House.

Used to visit NEEB Spennymoor Shop occasionally ...a lot of very civilised people all down to you as I now know...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You are correct Ferney....a lot of screaming at the screen in Wor House.

Used to visit NEEB Spennymoor Shop occasionally ...a lot of very civilised people all down to you as I now know...