NOTE: This is an audience participation post. See the bottom for how you can help!
The other afternoon, I was listening to WNYC’s Radio Lab, a show from a New York public radio station. Radio Lab always has really interesting shows, where they take a topic and run with it wherever the curiosity of the inquisitive hosts leads. The topic du jour was Musical Intelligence, and the major chapters of the program included tonal language as it relates to perfect pitch, our tendency to use baby talk as a surrogate and supplement for touch, and a music composition program that uses human composers’ scores as input.
(Interesting fact: people who grow up speaking tonal languages, such at Mandarin or Vietnamese where the pitch at which one speaks a work alters its meaning, have a 75% incidence of perfect pitch, whereas the rest of the world has 10% or less.)
One of the topics the show discussed was how the brain deals with unfamiliar sounds. Since our gray matter likes nothing better than recognizing and ordering patterns, there’s a dedicated group of neurons that spring into action whenever a new sound intrudes upon your ears. These neurons try to process and catalog the incoming noises. If they fail, they dump out some dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can affect one’s mood.
Now, I have a rather curious quirk: I hate being in noisy places. Being in a restaurant with lots of people and hard surfaces becomes almost physically uncomfortable for me after a mere 5 minutes or so. But playing in or listening to a loud band doesn’t bother me in the same way — my problem seems to be mostly with unstructured sound.
When I heard about this pattern-recognition center in the brain, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason for my aversion to noise is that my brain is unusually aggressive in its attempts to recognize patterns, and when it can’t do so, gets fatigued quickly. This theory would seem to be supported by the fact that I have good relative pitch, and can transcribe a melody I’ve heard more easily than most people. (This, by the way, is my sole gift as a musician, and is the reason I tend to like learning new instruments more than mastering old ones.)
So, to help me corroborate my theory, I need your help! I’d like to find out how people’s skill at recognizing musical patterns correlates to their level of discomfort with noise. If you could help by rating yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 in each of those areas, I’ll compile the results and see if there’s any statistically significant correlation between the two numbers.
To help out, here’s what the scales will be:
- Musical Pattern Recognition: 1 (tone deaf) - 5 (can usually hum back a melody after hearing it a couple of times) - 10 (can unerringly write down or play a melody after hearing it once)
- Noise Discomfort: 1 (fine working in a noisy factory) - 5 (happy at a cocktail party) - 10 (don’t like to go public places without earplugs)
So, for my own assessment, I’d give myself an MPR of 8 and a ND of 8 as well.
So, if you’re willing to help, leave a comment with your rating of yourself in these areas! I’d love to have ratings both from other people who are musical and who aren’t so that I can have data on both sides of the equation. Thanks in advance for your contributions, gentle readers!
UPDATE: Early results are coming in. There’s a definite clustering at one corner of the graph. Come on, non-musical and/or noise-loving people, we need to hear from you!
UPDATE 2: More data, and a trend line on the graph now. There is a bit of a trend emerging, though Barry skewed the far end, which may put the lie to my theory. We need some non-musical people to help fill in the gaps for us!
UPDATE 3: You guys rock. Thanks for all the good data. I’ve plotted the additional information, and the correlation I expected look less and less strong. It is interesting that there seems to be an inverse bell distribution on the noise tolerance taken by itself — people seem inclined to be either bothered not much or a fair bit by it. I’ll keep gathering data for a week to gather any stragglers and then post final results.
23 Comments
I’ll play.
I’d give myself a musical pattern recognition rating of 10 and a noise discomfort rating of 8 or so. But based on what you said about yourself, wouldn’t you rate you at a 10 for ND? I’m hesitant to say that I’m an 8 on that scale because I don’t get physically uncomfortable in noisy places, I just don’t like them very much. I’d rather have a nice quiet place.
I don’t care much for loud structured noise either, though I don’t mind being in the pit band. We were at a wedding this last weekend where the DJ played music at a stupidly loud level (I think he was compensating for his own deafness). Amazingly, the crowd was on the dance floor right in front of the speakers! Erin and I had to go hang out in the hallway because it hurt our ears. As I age I’m starting to be more and more careful with my hearing. I’m 38 and still have 18k or so, but I know that’ll reduce as I get older.
Great idea to do this!
I guess I gave myself an ND of 8 only because I’m capable of tolerating noise — it doesn’t drive me to fits immediately, but doesn’t take long for me to want to escape.
Your point about loud structured noise is well taken too. I don’t like loud structured noise much either, but certainly find it easier to sit through a Blue Man Group show, for example, than a raucous party at a similar volume level. And trying to do two recognition tasks at once, by having a conversation with loud background music for example, also wears my brain out quickly.
MPR 6 or 7, ND 7 or 8.
I rarely like “loud” of any type, structured or unstructured. Large, crowded, noisy gatherings bother me a lot more if I have to remain seated, and I think that’s because if I’m standing then I’m generally (as you know) “above the fray.”
I’d say 8/6 here. I’m quite good with pattern recognition, esp in music, though my accuracy degrades quickly with time. And I’m not particularly good with noisy environments - I get antsy pretty fast, though oddly I usually don’t recognize that that’s why I’m antsy until I’m about to bolt.
I’d say I’m 5 on musical recognition, 2 on noise discomfort. I can stand to be around a lot of noise and I can usually hum a tune after hearing it. (But not on key!)
9 on the music, 8-9 on the noise.
It’s the inability to hear what people are saying in the noisy environment that’s really annoying for me. I’ve always been told I appear aloof at parties. I just don’t talk to people, because it’s frustrating to follow a conversation with background noise.
greg.
I don’t know if I’m musical or not, quite honestly. I used to sing a lot as a child, but not as an adult and I can’t hum a tune nowadays. I learned to play a flute, and later some rudimentary piano (with some effort) that I’ve promptly forgotten. I did about average in those radio program “guess this tune” kinds of contests. I think I remember visual details (faces, words, pictures) better than sounds (voices, musical notes).
With that established - I can’t stand noisy environments. I feel physically battered and fatigued, much like you described. HOWEVER, I can, with effort, tune out a very noisy environment for a while, and much more so than my dear husband can. He is far more affected by a noisy environment, and is also far more effective at recognizing voices and musical patterns than I am.
The flip side of this is that I’m much more bothered by physical, visual chaos. I am easily bothered and distracted by and obviously disorganized physical environment, or by something that looks chaotic. I can easily recognize faces and visual patterns (fabrics for example) that I’ve seen only once.
Er, I forgot to add my numbers: I’d say, MPR 5, ND 6.
I’d put myself at 10/2.
My thought is that this is a social thing and not as much a cognitive one. It seems that many people who are gifted musicians are also highly introverted in the Meyers-Briggs sense: that is, they derive their energy from being alone, and being with large crowds depletes their energy. (As opposed to extroverts who are energized by crowds and depleted by solitude.)
So, although I have a lot of I in me, I’m strongly E. I love going to NIOSA, giant raves, football games, and so on. I can walk into a room full of complete strangers and start making friends pretty quickly. (All of the above makes my wife Catherine sick just thinking about it.)
This means that what you may perceive as a cognitive thing (my brain doesn’t like random noise as much as structured noise) may actually be a social one (I don’t like the sound of a big crowd). Note that everyone who expressed dislike of unstructured noise expressed it strictly in terms of social situations. No one said they hate river rafting.
Confirming the social theory, I note the graph of the results so far may show us much more about Sean’s social network than about the distribution of musical talent in the population.
Interesting stuff!!
Hah! While writing the article, I immediately thought of you as the counterexample to my theory, Barry — I figured that, being a lover of crowds, raves, and high-energy gatherings, you’d break the curve I posited.
Your social vs. cognitive question is a good one. In defense of my cognitive theory, I suspect that the noise of a room full of people talking is much different than the noise of a raging river, and that the brain would try much harder to tease structure and meaning out of the former than the latter. I find the idea of a crowd of people speaking in white noise less fatiguing than that of a crowd of speakers. It would be interesting to do a controlled experiment with this and see if people felt more stressed after listening to more articulated sounds — perhaps a string of random notes played by a computer — or white noise.
MPR = 3; ND = 3.
MPR = 9, ND=4
In the MPR category, I’d say 6 or 7. In the “noisy hell” category, 8 or 9, depending on level of crankiness prior to entering said hell.
6/7
i give myself a 6 on MPR and again a 6 on ND.
MPR 6
ND 5
Sean, I volunteer to play the part of the barely-articulate-almost-white-noise production system, should you need one for your experiment.
I’ll just show up and be myself.
It seems that Barry has made some very astute observations that your may have overlooked and would need to control for. That is not to say that you basic theory is in error. I remember reading some years ago that the western ear can distinguish four octaves while the eastern ear (think Imam in a masque) has been conditioned to hear fourteen (my memory is a little fuzzy on the last number). (from reading in my Sensation and Perception psyche class)
Additional language tidbit: people who speak an Asian language, think Canton or Nipon, can work with numbers at higher speeds and more accurately than those who speak western languages. (from my Memory and Learning pshych class)
My MPR 7, ND 1.
Additional Note: After discussing with Wonko’s Bud’s Wife; How would you control for someone who is a ND 10 but has no music theory(can’t play an instrument or write music)?
I mean’t MPR Ten not ND.
Lots of good discussion here. I have to note that white water rapids are actually not as loud as their made out in the movies. You have to raise your voice a little bit to be heard, but it’s mostly evenly distributed white noise and not at all unpleasant. Plus, most rapids don’t last very long (10-30 seconds), so there’s not much time to get fatigued (aurally, at least).
Speaking of white noise, Erin and I have a white noise generator in our bedroom that covers those random noises that happen throughout the night. We’ve used it for years and it’s made a big difference in our quality of sleep, but I still have nights when I just can’t sleep at all. I noticed that when I use earplugs when I’m away on business I always sleep better. So about eight months ago I started sleeping with those foam earplugs to block out all sounds. It’s a 30db diminution. I’ve been amazed at how much better I’m sleeping. I still deal with insomnia on a weekly basis, but that’s much better than my old pattern of sleep for one night, stay up for two. I think I’m so sensitive to sounds that my brain stays active.
So Sean, are you going to publish?
“not as loud as their”
grammar police, please correct to read: “they’re”
6 and a 6, baby. Sorry, little late to the party.