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Human beliefs sure are weird. Why is it so difficult to get audiophiles to accept the existence of perceptual bias?

THW

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That's why you obviously put the solar cells in space and then connect them to Earth with 50,000km space elevator. Duh. It is like you've never even watched Mobile Suit Gundam 00. :facepalm:;) Once you've accomplished that then you obviously can get to work on 18m tall humanoid robots powered by baryonic decay. If that proves too difficult there are always cold fusion and "degeneracy" reactors (all you need a spare black hole or two). It should be noted though these things are only for powering giant robots (between 18m–250m tall). They are not for unimportant things like "solving the energy crisis" or something.

Geez, it is like you guys don't even watch any Japanese animes. :p

don’t forget that anything coloured red makes anything go 3 times faster
 

Ron Texas

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don’t forget that anything coloured red makes anything go 3 times faster

that's why sports cars are red.
 

AndrewDavis

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A couple real life anecdotes I've collected over the years about how our senses deceive us:

1. The Anheiser Busch experimental brewery was working on a Christmas beer, a new recipe utilizing cinnamon and nutmeg. The brewers at the experimental brewery emailed their supervisor at the main production brewery saying that they couldn't seem to get enough cinnamon flavor. They exchanged emails, going over the chemistry of cinnamon in beer, cinnamon's oxidizing process over time, etc. Finally the boss said "FedEx me a sample bottle." When he opened the sample he was overwhelmed by the aroma and flavor of what seemed like carbonated liquid cinnamon. Thinking that his experimental brewers had gone off the rails, he booked a flight. When he arrived at the experimental brewery the next day -even before he got into the building- he had solved the problem. The brewery reeked of cinnamon, the brewer's clothes smelled like cinnamon, even the parking lot smelled like cinnamon. The experimental brewers ad been working with cinnamon so much, that they had become desensitized to it and so kept adding and adding cinnamon , compounding the problem.

2. Both the patients and the doctors in double blinded drug trials are ignorant of whether the pills dispensed are real medicine or a placebo (hence double blinded). Patients of similar demographics and disease are divided into three groups, one given placebo, one given real medicine, and another not given a pill at all. It is very common for the cholesterol levels in both the medicine group and the placebo group to improve , while the cholesterol levels in the third (no pill at all) group get worse. The power of suggestion literally changes peoples blood composition. If suggestion is that powerful, it definitely can influence us to believe we hear more detail or "richness" or "color" in a favored audio brand or technology.

3. I took an undergrad psych class where partway through a lecture a person walked in though the front door, apologized to the class for interrupting and spoke with the professor at the lectern for several minutes while the class waited. The gentleman left, and the professor continued his lecture. Some time after resuming the professor stopped his lecture and asked the class to describe the man. Turns out it was planned and the interrupter was one of his grad students. So....what did he look like? What color was his hair, long or short? Beard or no? Race? T shirt or button down? What color? The classroom was small (30ish seats) and he was in front speaking to the professor for 5 full minutes yet our answers were all over the map. He was white...no...Hispanic.... blonde hair maybe...., beard...no, a goatee... red t shirt...maybe blue polo....much taller than the professor...no same height, and so on. The class couldn't agree on any detail of his appearance or what they discussed, and most got it entirely wrong.

So whenever anyone says something like "I trust my ears," or "I know what I hear/saw," or anything else similar, they are either willfully ignorant or they come by their ignorance honestly. Either way people who are so blind to their own natural humanity haaaaate being told they're wrong.
 
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Blumlein 88

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A couple real life anecdotes I've collected over the years about how our senses deceive us:

1. The Anheiser Busch experimental brewery was working on a Christmas beer, a new recipe utilizing cinnamon and nutmeg. The brewers at the experimental brewery emailed their supervisor at the main production brewery saying that they couldn't seem to get enough cinnamon flavor. They exchanged emails, going over the chemistry of cinnamon in beer, cinnamon's oxidizing process over time, etc. Finally the boss said "FedEx me a sample bottle." When he opened the sample he was overwhelmed by the aroma and flavor of what seemed like carbonated liquid cinnamon. Thinking that his experimental brewers had gone off the rails, he booked a flight. When he arrived at the experimental brewery the next day -even before he got into the building- he had solved the problem. The brewery reeked of cinnamon, the brewer's clothes smelled like cinnamon, even the parking lot smelled like cinnamon. The experimental brewers ad been working with cinnamon so much, that they had become desensitized to it and so kept adding and adding cinnamon , compounding the problem.

2. Both the patients and the doctors in double blinded drug trials are ignorant of whether the pills dispensed are real medicine or a placebo (hence double blinded). Patients of similar demographics and disease are divided into three groups, one given placebo, one given real medicine, and another not given a pill at all. It is very common for the cholesterol levels in both the medicine group and the placebo group to improve , while the cholesterol levels in the third (no pill at all) group get worse. The power of suggestion literally changes peoples blood composition. If suggestion is that powerful, it definitely can influence us to believe we hear more detail or "richness" or "color" in a favored audio brand or technology.

3. I took an undergrad psych class where partway through a lecture a person walked in though the front door, apologized to the class for interrupting and spoke with the professor at the lectern for several minutes while the class waited. The gentleman left, and the professor continued his lecture. Some time after resuming the professor stopped his lecture and asked the class to describe the man. Turns out it was planned and the interrupter was one of his grad students. So....what did he look like? What color was his hair, long or short? Beard or no? Race? T shirt or button down? What color? The classroom was small (30ish seats) and he was in front speaking to the professor for 5 full minutes yet our answers were all over the map. He was white...no...Hispanic.... blonde hair maybe...., beard...no, a goatee... red t shirt...maybe blue polo....much taller than the professor...no same height, and so on. The class couldn't agree on any detail of his appearance or what they discussed, and most got it entirely wrong.

So whenever anyone says something like "I trust my ears," or "I know what I hear/saw," or anything else similar, they are either willfully ignorant or they come by their ignorance honestly. Either way people who are so blind to their own human imperfections haaaaate being told they're wrong.
A friend who is an attorney describes something similar to your #3. A lecture with maybe 80 law students is interrupted. Someone runs from the back of the class, runs to someone in the front row who stands up, points something at him and the front row guys falls down when the interloper says Bang really loud. The interloper runs out.

The interloper was wearing Groucho Marx glasses, a gray trenchcoat, and carrying a banana. Afterwards testimony of eye witnesses is heard. A recently sitting senator in the class said, the guy fired his banana shooting the victim to the ground. There were other very varied descriptions of what occurred. Some simply wrong, many like describing a shooting with a banana when obviously a banana doesn't shoot and though someone fell to the ground it would seem obvious it wasn't due to the banana being pointed at them though some people couldn't perceive that way without difficulty. Eye witnesses aren't nearly the solid evidence some people think they are. And that is why completely different eyewitness testimony doesn't mean anyone is lying.
 
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Z

Zerimas

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don’t forget that anything coloured red makes anything go 3 times faster

How could I! You have to be careful with that. There are definitely some things that you don't want to be "3 times faster". Not that I'd know anything about that. . . o_O

But actually I saw a joke on such thing in a manga (well maybe a "special" kind of manga). I was trying to find it, but I had no luck. I made me lol mightily.
 

Wombat

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A couple real life anecdotes I've collected over the years about how our senses deceive us:

1. The Anheiser Busch experimental brewery was working on a Christmas beer, a new recipe utilizing cinnamon and nutmeg. The brewers at the experimental brewery emailed their supervisor at the main production brewery saying that they couldn't seem to get enough cinnamon flavor. They exchanged emails, going over the chemistry of cinnamon in beer, cinnamon's oxidizing process over time, etc. Finally the boss said "FedEx me a sample bottle." When he opened the sample he was overwhelmed by the aroma and flavor of what seemed like carbonated liquid cinnamon. Thinking that his experimental brewers had gone off the rails, he booked a flight. When he arrived at the experimental brewery the next day -even before he got into the building- he had solved the problem. The brewery reeked of cinnamon, the brewer's clothes smelled like cinnamon, even the parking lot smelled like cinnamon. The experimental brewers ad been working with cinnamon so much, that they had become desensitized to it and so kept adding and adding cinnamon , compounding the problem.

2. Both the patients and the doctors in double blinded drug trials are ignorant of whether the pills dispensed are real medicine or a placebo (hence double blinded). Patients of similar demographics and disease are divided into three groups, one given placebo, one given real medicine, and another not given a pill at all. It is very common for the cholesterol levels in both the medicine group and the placebo group to improve , while the cholesterol levels in the third (no pill at all) group get worse. The power of suggestion literally changes peoples blood composition. If suggestion is that powerful, it definitely can influence us to believe we hear more detail or "richness" or "color" in a favored audio brand or technology.

3. I took an undergrad psych class where partway through a lecture a person walked in though the front door, apologized to the class for interrupting and spoke with the professor at the lectern for several minutes while the class waited. The gentleman left, and the professor continued his lecture. Some time after resuming the professor stopped his lecture and asked the class to describe the man. Turns out it was planned and the interrupter was one of his grad students. So....what did he look like? What color was his hair, long or short? Beard or no? Race? T shirt or button down? What color? The classroom was small (30ish seats) and he was in front speaking to the professor for 5 full minutes yet our answers were all over the map. He was white...no...Hispanic.... blonde hair maybe...., beard...no, a goatee... red t shirt...maybe blue polo....much taller than the professor...no same height, and so on. The class couldn't agree on any detail of his appearance or what they discussed, and most got it entirely wrong.

So whenever anyone says something like "I trust my ears," or "I know what I hear/saw," or anything else similar, they are either willfully ignorant or they come by their ignorance honestly. Either way people who are so blind to their own natural humanity haaaaate being told they're wrong.


Re. 2. Is there any credible information on how long the placebo effect lasts?
 

Wombat

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Soniclife

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Re. 2. Is there any credible information on how long the placebo effect lasts?
Potentially a long time, and it can even survive people knowing they are on a placebo. Normal over the counter pain killers are known to work better when they come in fancy packaging, even if the tablet inside is the same, and even if you know the tablet is the same, and even if you are a doctor.
 

Wombat

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68566710_2479886335584669_5892492532209680384_n.jpg
 

digicidal

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Although being very powerful isn't an option for almost everyone - being very stupid is a diverse and inclusive club that's always looking for new members! So there's that. Guess I am an optimist after all.
 

BDWoody

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Although being very powerful isn't an option for almost everyone - being very stupid is a diverse and inclusive club that's always looking for new members! So there's that. Guess I am an optimist after all.

Finally! A club I can join!
 

digicidal

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Finally! A club I can join!

My biggest obstacle is that, like Groucho Marx, I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member. Well, that and I don't use social media, which appears to be their only requirement as far as I can tell. ;)

Although maybe that's just a case of correlation rather than causality.
 

RichB

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For those absolutely certain that climate change primarily man made and can be correct by government intervention, answer one simple question:

How many genders are there? :p

Edit: Oh crap, I said man made, correction: person made.

- Rich
 

AndrewDavis

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This is a fun thread about the limits of sensory perception. I'm sure there is different, more appropriate place for those questions?
 
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RichB

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It seems to me that the existence DBT's are best applied statistically. For example, the Harman research into what makes a good loudspeaker and its correlation to human preference. Many samples and a controlled pool of listeners are required.

It may also be reasonable to prove using a single instance of say detectable differences but only when referenced against the exact configuration, people, gear, and music sample. For example, I believe @amirm was able to identify the HD version of keys rattling.

Accepting this fact, we still do not understand the cause. It cannot be that he hears ultrasonics. People cannot hear them anymore than they can see ultraviolet. So what then? It seems that the likely cause is related to some change in the playback chain produces difference in the audible range. Let's then assume it is related to the higher sampling rate.

The audible difference could be generated by the removal of an inaccuracy in playback chain such as filtering artifact or timing. It could also be the addition of distortion created when the playback chain includes ultrasonics. Since this is difficult to answer, many just pick HD because it represents the best possible recording. That's fine but not necessarily the right answer for all systems.
So at some level, human choice and faith in what seems to be the best choice is applied by all of us.

Let's take another example. Room correction. Many run these systems and view the bias generating predictive results.
A good card-carrying objectivist should reject this methodology. Only independent after measurements should be used to determine the best result. Of course, most folks just run REQ until they like it :p

- Rich
 

MattHooper

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2. Both the patients and the doctors in double blinded drug trials are ignorant of whether the pills dispensed are real medicine or a placebo (hence double blinded). Patients of similar demographics and disease are divided into three groups, one given placebo, one given real medicine, and another not given a pill at all. It is very common for the cholesterol levels in both the medicine group and the placebo group to improve , while the cholesterol levels in the third (no pill at all) group get worse. The power of suggestion literally changes peoples blood composition. If suggestion is that powerful, it definitely can influence us to believe we hear more detail or "richness" or "color" in a favored audio brand or technology.

My son was recently involved in study of a peanut allergy therapy. The first part of the study was double-blind, so even the study doctors didn't know who was receiving the placebo vs the active ingredient. After we'd found out (6 months later) the results (my son was on the active ingrediant) the study doctors said that they would have hunches as to who was on the active ingredient from the symptom reports during the blinded period. But once the results were revealed their hunches and guesses were often wrong, as the symptom reports were all over the place: people on the placebo often reported similar "side effects" to those on the active ingredient.

Just goes to show how useful blind testing and controls are for weeding through variables. Without those controls and simply on trying to diagnose from the subjective reports, the doctors could have made all sorts of wrong inferences and diagnoses.

ETA: Which is one reason why I don't trust Alternative Medicine.
 
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AndrewDavis

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Matt, that's a good example. Hope your son is doing well with his new treatment.

There are a lot of interesting stories in medical trials as those are usually the most rigorously blinded. The one I chose is just my favorite.

Unrelated to this topic but funny is the one about a medication developed for pulmonary hypertension In studies it wasn't very effective, but in male test subjects had a strange side effect. They also found male test subjects were ocaught hoarding their meds, and claimed they lost their leftover medication at the end of trials. It's chemical name is sildenifil...aka Viagra
 
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digicidal

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What the hell... all of the sudden we're back on topic?!? :eek:

IMO one of the biggest keys to the "audiophile golden ears" perception (and therefore against accepting perceptual bias) lies in the subjective interpretation of the aural stimulus. The fact that a measured, audible difference is interpreted as "warm or textural" to one person but "noisy and grainy" to another, lends to a natural defensiveness in many (esp. those with reviewer incomes on the line). If we as consumers quit putting so much weight in the opinions of others, and simply allowed ourselves to be "happy outliers" - there wouldn't be as many opportunities to be taken advantage of, nor as much disagreement over selection metrics.

I think the idea of there being an objective "better" is actually more frightening to some than the idea that they are actually inventing the perceptive differences they cling to as superlative. After all, once there is a standardized set of parameters, there's that much less to argue about. In general, it does seem to be a little better (even in subjectivist circles) in the audio world. I've had to swear off all automotive enthusiast sites, and stay far, far away from discussions regarding "the best OS/CPU/GPU" on tech forums.
 
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