The psychology of it all.

[FlyingFreak]

Hello dear community of audio enthusiasts,

After reading so much things about snake oil dongle and how people respond to each others on both side of the discussion, I thought it might be useful to add a psychology thread.
First thought to start it in the audio section then got shy, so here it is, in the fun section.

Disclaimers:

1. First time trying to share those things to others. I am no teachers and English isnt my first language. I welcome help, correction and other constructive inputs!

2. THIS IS NOT AN OTHER AUDIO THREAD. This thread is about how we speak about audio and what might drive us to say and think what we think about it. Please practice self control and refrain impulses to speak audio.

3. The motivation for this thread is the belief that if people were feeling more supported and emotionally regulated, we wouldn't have all those discussions and snake oil dealers no clients and I hope this thread might support us getting there.


Here is how I see the discussion between 'objectivists' and 'subjectivists':

1. How to test any audio component (discussion on what measurements are and aren't, what an individual in their living rooms can and can't do.)
2. Psycho acoustics (From the science of earrings to argument of authority that sounds all a little like this 'my ears aren't yours', 'my taste cant be reduced by numbers')
3. Expressing outrage, outcry, disbelief, -more rarely- hurts.
And finally, when pushed beyond their -emotional and argumentative- limits:
4. You (the other side) are objectively insane and other flowery arguments that are all poor disguise of kindergarten name calling, and bombing of torsos.

I think it is notable that most 'subjectivists' and 'objectivists', if pushed, agrees that it has nothing to do with audio anything.

Imagining I am properly addressing the issue, here is what I d like to start to develop in this thread:

1. Learn the basics of human communication (how and why we communicate and how it affects us),
2. believe systems (how they form, reinforced themselves and relaxes AND learn about cult) and
3. how to protect oneself from getting co-opted in someone else's bs (build personal resilience and sense of agency).

A lot of discussion tends to be personal (I have the dacs in my room rn, dont you go tell me what I do or don't hear you filthy number addict animal). This is the first mistake when going into those swamp of discussion. It is mostly not personal yet it feels personal. In my example, if I have a couple of dac and tell you how sweet the low medium is with one and how harsh the trebles is with the others and you tell me I am making that up I will probably take it as an attack to my sense of self. You might do it knowingly cause you are having a bad day or you like putting things on fire for giggles or unknowingly thinking you are speaking about facts. Point is, you are challenging my belief system at such a basic level (what I can and cant perceive) and generally doing so without caring about me so I react protecting my thing. We are not anymore speaking about the same thing. You are hurt by me propagating audio bs and I am hurt by you attacking my sense of self.

So that is the microcosm of what is happening. It is happening in a bigger world. Hence people calling ASR a cult based mumbo jumbo forum. This points to how groups works. It is true to say a group tend to share believes and sensitivities. The fun part is that if the group forms around something unbelievable the group cohesion will be stronger and the most unbelievable it is the strongest the cohesion. Think about the wildest cult in history. Real strong cohesion, totally nuts shared belief.

Moreover, as I pointed out on another thread, cult followers tend to be the first to call other people cult followers when they are threatened. If you think about it, it is a great strategy. It is suddenly on you to bear the burden of proof to someone who says the Earth is flat, socialist child molester billionaires are poisoning the waters etc. Good luck with that! The question is a bait and if you try to answer, you are trapped. Saying differently, no matter how aware or not that they are saying nonsense, the part of them baiting you isnt looking to learn but to make you as ridicule as they perceive you are trying to make them feel. They want you to feel bad. Believing that proof, verifiable information, etc. will help them seeing reason is you becoming unreasonable.

Another potentially relevant phenomenon is known as the 'Dunning-Kruger effect'. This effect occurs when a person's lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area cause them to overestimate their own competence. By contrast, this effect also causes those who excel in a given area to think the task is simple for everyone, and underestimate their relative abilities as well. This seems to me speaking to most of the subjective reviewer. They have little to no idea what a dac is and go on listening to them and describing them with such confidence we neurotic intellectuals start second guessing ourselves. (As anything psychological, the existence of this effect isnt universally recognized nor accepted. Nothing in this field is true and measurable in the way a length or a voltage is.)

I haven't mentioned yet a couple of elephant in the room: pride (and reactionary behaviors to perceiving attack to ego), denial (and reason for it) and narcissism (and attachment to control, lie and gaslight). Those are usually called out so I imagine we all know it. If that is interesting I can go deeper in any of those.

Feel free to add to the list. I am new here, this is just what I have noticed so far from my meaning making lens. I would love to have it all together written somewhere.

I hope this is interesting enough for y'all! Lemme know if anything is of particular interest so you and I know what might be worth developing!

Interesting articles (I will update this):

How to Change Minds? A Study Makes the Case for Talking It Out. (Published 2022)

Researchers found that meaty conversations among several people can align beliefs and brain patterns — so long as the group is free of blowhards.

www.nytimes.com

Understanding Cults: The Basics

To help others, it is important to understand mind control and undue influence.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[Digby]

What is the purpose of the thread? Similar threads have been started before and tend to descend rather quickly. There are interesting things to say about the matter but personally, I think subjectivist/objectivist is a false dichotomy. A mix of both exists in every individual.

 

[FlyingFreak]

I keep seeing people discussing what they can and cant hear everywhere on this forum.
I dont think those discussion goes anywhere cause I dont think the two parties speak about an audio related issue. Therefore speaking as if it was leads nowhere.
I thought it was interesting to develop a thread about how we communicate and how we believe what we believe instead of continuing debunking videos.

I dont think this thread nor debunking videos might change everything but do think they are both worthy investigation in their own rights. I have seen many of the point I am making above in debunking threads. I think that further complicated the message and both threads are interesting and should be discussed on their own, for clarity sake.

Now if such a thread already exists, it is redundant and has no interest. If no ones care about the question, no purpose either.

 

[Studio Guy]

At its core, psychology is the study of how to manipulate people, and most of my psychologist friends protest this saying "we're trying to help people". But no matter what the motivation, manipulation is a violation of another person. There is no greater tyrant than the king who thinks he is benevolent and that his actions are for the peoples own good.

 

[Keith_W]

At its core, psychology is the study of how to manipulate people, and most of my psychologist friends protest this saying "we're trying to help people". But no matter what the motivation, manipulation is a violation of another person. There is no greater tyrant than the king who thinks he is benevolent and that his actions are for the peoples own good.

Interesting point of view. ALL manipulation? Does that include newspapers and politicians? Parents? Teachers? What about forum posts? Or (since we are on an audio forum) ... music? Is it manipulation that some music makes me happy or sad?

 

[dasdoing]

At its core, psychology is the study of how to manipulate people, and most of my psychologist friends protest this saying "we're trying to help people". But no matter what the motivation, manipulation is a violation of another person. There is no greater tyrant than the king who thinks he is benevolent and that his actions are for the peoples own good.

not a big fan of psychology either, but when a depressive person goes into therapy and says "life's a bitch and then you die", what do you expect? "you are right"? it's neither wrong, nor right; but the thing is, it's not a healthy path. they try to get you on a healthy path instead.

 

[Axo1989]

At its core, psychology is the study of how to manipulate people, and most of my psychologist friends protest this saying "we're trying to help people". But no matter what the motivation, manipulation is a violation of another person. There is no greater tyrant than the king who thinks he is benevolent and that his actions are for the peoples own good.

No, it isn't: that's a possible application of psychology, but not "its core".

 

[Digby]

Isn't psychology an attempt to understand people, first and foremost? How good it is is anybody's guess, but yes, that understanding can be used for manipulation. Interesting aside - Edward Bernays, the creator of modern advertising, was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, father of psychology. So, obviously someone cottoned onto the manipulation angle relatively quickly.

 

[312elements]

I think psychology is the problem, not the solution.

As someone who believes in the importance of measurements but doesn't believe that current measurements tell 100% of the story, I'm often at odds with content posted by the members here. I have no issue with the reviews and that's what keeps me coming back, but the tone of what I believe to be the vocal minority here is toxic. I rarely get very far through the comments without rolling my eyes.

I don't want to go into the merits of either camp which I find myself pretty squarely in the middle of personally. What I will comment on is the lack of open-mindedness. The lack of scientific curiosity. The confidence in which people speak of things they don't really understand or know about. The idea that double blind tests aren't inherently biased by tracks selected, preconceived notions and the level of experience of the participants. I could go on, but the bottom line is the problems stem from lack of respect for an opposing viewpoint. This problem is more prevalent here than any other audio forum on the internet. This place is largely an echo-chamber where rather than have good discussions around opposing viewpoints the herd seeks to stamp out, insult, and belittle people who speak out of turn. "Show me the measurements", "show me the double blind test results" are not productive responses. Then on the rare occasion that people go out of their way to create some type of test results they're immediately ridiculed for not performing them properly.

I have no expectation of changing the culture here, but the culture is definitely problematic. It's equally likely that technology is holding back our ability to measure something as it is that people are hearing things or that their minds are fooling them. Historically as a society we've believed a lot of things supported by the science of the time that were later proven to be incorrect. I'm also not advocating for the other extreme either. I'm advocating for civility. An incomplete set of objective measurements are not definitive. They're important, they're helpful, they're moving the conversation in the right direction but they just don't tell the whole story.

 

[fpitas]

I have to think this won't end well. But just to discuss one of the big problems: Amir measures a DAC (let us say). It has 115dB SINAD (let us say). Next someone weighs in saying they can hear a difference between this DAC and one with 110dB SINAD. It is left to us to prove they are right. In no case have I seen the situation where someone said, "Well golly! I'd better run my own experiments to illustrate I can actually hear differences, and point out what is lacking in the measurement methodology." That only seems funny because it's stereotypical.

 

[JRS]

Interesting point of view. ALL manipulation? Does that include newspapers and politicians? Parents? Teachers? What about forum posts? Or (since we are on an audio forum) ... music? Is it manipulation that some music makes me happy or sad?

A bit like suggesting knowledge of the atom is all about dropping bombs. Certainly, psychology can and has been perverted in the service of power, but at it's it most fundamental. it is simply seeking to explain how people think and feel.

 

[Spkrdctr]

I'm thinking and maybe incorrectly, that the big problem is that so many people know so little about audio it creates pseudoscience and snake oil. For example, If someone says, I can hear the difference between 12ga zip cord speaker wire and 12 ga Unobtainium speaker wire, the scientific community knows that they can't. The wires are tested (many by Amir) and the differences are so small we know that a human can't hear any difference. So then the argument starts, one side thinks they can hear the difference (their mind playing tricks on them) and the other side has evidence that it is impossible. There is no "middle ground". In order to make middle ground you have to start allowing fake science in and/or snake oil. Letting someone continue in their ignorant ways does not help them understand audio topics. Now if I have missed the whole point of this thread, just ignore my post.

 

[312elements]

I'm thinking and maybe incorrectly, that the big problem is that so many people know so little about audio it creates pseudoscience and snake oil. For example, If someone says, I can hear the difference between 12ga zip cord speaker wire and 12 ga Unobtainium speaker wire, the scientific community knows that they can't. The wires are tested (many by Amir) and the differences are so small we know that a human can't hear any difference. So then the argument starts, one side thinks they can hear the difference (their mind playing tricks on them) and the other side has evidence that it is impossible. There is no "middle ground". In order to make middle ground you have to start allowing fake science in and/or snake oil. Letting someone continue in their ignorant ways does not help them understand audio topics. Now if I have missed the whole point of this thread, just ignore my post.

I think your post is a great example of my point.

 

[Spkrdctr]

I think your post is a great example of my point.

I'm not understanding how to move this forward. Are we being kind and sympathetic in allowing someone to leave a discussion where his thinking is incorrect? To be nice do we affirm the wrong thinking? If you correct anyone you have an immediate cat fight on your hands. I have no idea how to get around it.

 

[Sokel]

I'm thinking and maybe incorrectly, that the big problem is that so many people know so little about audio it creates pseudoscience and snake oil. For example, If someone says, I can hear the difference between 12ga zip cord speaker wire and 12 ga Unobtainium speaker wire, the scientific community knows that they can't. The wires are tested (many by Amir) and the differences are so small we know that a human can't hear any difference. So then the argument starts, one side thinks they can hear the difference (their mind playing tricks on them) and the other side has evidence that it is impossible. There is no "middle ground". In order to make middle ground you have to start allowing fake science in and/or snake oil. Letting someone continue in their ignorant ways does not help them understand audio topics. Now if I have missed the whole point of this thread, just ignore my post.

I agree 100% about the reality check.
What gets complicated though is the way some people treat these misguided people and sadly has nothing to do with them.

Two things are the rant in every conversation:money and authority.

You have to be super sufficient not to show any of them if you have them.
You also have to be super self aware if you don't,that is ok too.

Funny thing is that in the upper stages of knowledge you don't often meet people hiding behind either of them.
When you know something you know it,there are great examples here as well,VERY few of them but there are.
You can tell by how easy the explain everything.

The rest...
Just people telling people they are wrong,making groups (it's nice to belong) and giving some meaning to their free time.

Good thing is that is fun when you know what you want.

 

[pablolie]

No, it isn't: that's a possible application of psychology, but not "its core".

Psychology covers a huge area. It's like saying "Engineering". There are many branches, specializations, etc.

In general, I wouldn't use the word lightly, and specifically I would not apply it when it comes to assumptions about people's motivations in this forum.

 

[egellings]

I'm thinking and maybe incorrectly, that the big problem is that so many people know so little about audio it creates pseudoscience and snake oil. For example, If someone says, I can hear the difference between 12ga zip cord speaker wire and 12 ga Unobtainium speaker wire, the scientific community knows that they can't. The wires are tested (many by Amir) and the differences are so small we know that a human can't hear any difference. So then the argument starts, one side thinks they can hear the difference (their mind playing tricks on them) and the other side has evidence that it is impossible. There is no "middle ground". In order to make middle ground you have to start allowing fake science in and/or snake oil. Letting someone continue in their ignorant ways does not help them understand audio topics. Now if I have missed the whole point of this thread, just ignore my post.

As in all of these "I hear a difference" arguments, a double-blind listening test done at matched volume levels will quickly resolve the dispute.

 

[312elements]

I'm not understanding how to move this forward. Are we being kind and sympathetic in allowing someone to leave a discussion where his thinking is incorrect? To be nice do we affirm the wrong thinking? If you correct anyone you have an immediate cat fight on your hands. I have no idea how to get around it.

Honestly the wire one is even hard for me to defend. I have had only one first person experience where a speaker wire made a difference and it was explainable by the science involved and it was absolutely a fringe case scenario. I was discussing power cables with a friend yesterday and he was asking me to explain why it could possibly matter and the only answer that I could give him was that I'd never spend $1000 on power cable and that while I've tried a few cables (under $100) I've never been able to hear a discernible difference. I was able to do that respectfully without questioning anyones intelligence or speaking in absolutes.

You cited a test that concluded that differences would be inaudible to the human ear. I tend to agree with you. I'm also open to the possibility that there could be factors not considered and while unlikely perhaps that inaudible difference is amplified somewhere else in the chain and in unique fringe case circumstances is actually audible in a different system. Am I advocating for people spending $1000 on a power cable? Absolutely not. Am I leaving myself open to the possibility that someone might know something I don't? I am. Treating people with respect furthers the conversation.

Does anyone else find it odd that despite the fact that most DAC's on the DAC list perform well enough to pass the beyond the scope of human hearing test, people are still spending $500-$1000 on a measurably well performing DAC? If the difference doesn't matter because you can't hear it, then why do people keep throwing money at the problem? I'm not talking about the Tube DAC and the R2R crowd. I'm talking about Topping and SMSL. My take is that these people hope that despite the fact that the measured improved performance is not perceivable, that they'll get something more out of it and I'm guessing that most of those folks with the latest and greatest from Topping or SMSL will tell you that it sounds better than whatever they upgraded from when their old unit already measured better than what their hearing is technically able to perceive. They're not subjected to ridicule and I'd bet that many of them could pass a double blind test. Why? I don't have the answer to that question. My hypothesis is that some of these effects are cumulative and signal chain dependent.

All of this is beside the point. I think many of the comments here are loaded with a learned bias. I think that culture is unhealthy and in large part distorts the science. Again, I'm going to use the power cable example because it's easy, but if you believe there's no possible way that a power cable could ever make a difference then your bias is going to render any type of subjective explanation pointless. Until we have better tools for measuring audio, some type of subjective input is required. I'm not suggesting they should be equally weighted, I'm saying that if we leave no room for the possibility that the data is wrong or incomplete, then we have little hope of gaining a better understanding of it.

 

[egellings]

Honestly the wire one is even hard for me to defend. I have had only one first person experience where a speaker wire made a difference and it was explainable by the science involved and it was absolutely a fringe case scenario. I was discussing power cables with a friend yesterday and he was asking me to explain why it could possibly matter and the only answer that I could give him was that I'd never spend $1000 on power cable and that while I've tried a few cables (under $100) I've never been able to hear a discernible difference. I was able to do that respectfully without questioning anyones intelligence or speaking in absolutes.

You cited a test that concluded that differences would be inaudible to the human ear. I tend to agree with you. I'm also open to the possibility that there could be factors not considered and while unlikely perhaps that inaudible difference is amplified somewhere else in the chain and in unique fringe case circumstances is actually audible in a different system. Am I advocating for people spending $1000 on a power cable? Absolutely not. Am I leaving myself open to the possibility that someone might know something I don't? I am. Treating people with respect furthers the conversation.

Does anyone else find it odd that despite the fact that most DAC's on the DAC list perform well enough to pass the beyond the scope of human hearing test, people are still spending $500-$1000 on a measurably well performing DAC? If the difference doesn't matter because you can't hear it, then why do people keep throwing money at the problem? I'm not talking about the Tube DAC and the R2R crowd. I'm talking about Topping and SMSL. My take is that these people hope that despite the fact that the measured improved performance is not perceivable, that they'll get something more out of it and I'm guessing that most of those folks with the latest and greatest from Topping or SMSL will tell you that it sounds better than whatever they upgraded from when their old unit already measured better than what their hearing is technically able to perceive. They're not subjected to ridicule and I'd bet that many of them could pass a double blind test. Why? I don't have the answer to that question. My hypothesis is that some of these effects are cumulative and signal chain dependent.

All of this is beside the point. I think many of the comments here are loaded with a learned bias. I think that culture is unhealthy and in large part distorts the science. Again, I'm going to use the power cable example because it's easy, but if you believe there's no possible way that a power cable could ever make a difference then your bias is going to render any type of subjective explanation pointless. Until we have better tools for measuring audio, some type of subjective input is required. I'm not suggesting they should be equally weighted, I'm saying that if we leave no room for the possibility that the data is wrong or incomplete, then we have little hope of gaining a better understanding of it.

Factors not considered would be prior beliefs about the effects of cables. The only way I could see to resolve an argument about, say, two power cords, one fancy audiophile grade and one competent but service grade would be to have an informal blind listening test. It may also be that if a listener truly believes that one cable sounds better than another, then to them only, that will be true as long as they know which cable is in play. If that's the case, then that listener should just go out and buy the darn thing and be happy with it.

 

[pablolie]

As in all of these "I hear a difference" arguments, a double-blind listening test done at matched volume levels will quickly resolve the dispute.

Not really - people will still hear what they want to hear, and when things are equal they *still* establish a preference.

I tested the Benchmark AHB2 and the NAD M22 side by side, volume matched. I didn't hear a difference until I had to convince myself I *had* to make a choice since I could not keep both. And so I decided to hear a difference, and picked one because it seems to sound more "fun".

I know the counter argument will be that double blind testing will show the supposed preference is pretty much 50-50 statistically... but people still make "excuses" to justify their choice.