AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - A model of the brain, & quick-switch

wrote:
wrote:
"So long as one thinks that *all* questions about perception are directly
translatable into questions about comparison or discrimination (or
categorization), one is apt to miss his point entirely."

You have it backwards, perception artifacts not in the signal is offered
as an explanation. One need not have any such model when making the
simple observation that placing a cloth over connections causes previously
easy to discriminate differences to fall into the level of random guess.

We see the statement a lot that "the differences disappear when a cloth
goes over the equipment." But in most blind tests, it isn't just the
"blindness" that has been changed. Especially in tests designed to show
objectively that a difference based in sound was perceived, the
listener is required to discriminate under a certain set of conditions,
and to make the discrimination a large number of times in a fairly
brief period of time. So more has changed than "putting a cloth over
the components."

But nothing is changed that would hinder the listener, despite what you
want to believe. In fact, DBTs are generally conducted in ways that
should improve the subject's sensitivity, relative to the way most
sighted comparisons are carried out. The most obvious example of this
is quick switching.

We could try to do DBTs in ways more analogous to the practices of
ill-informed audiophiles, but why would we want to? The tests wouldn't
work as well, because we'd get too many null results, even in cases
where we know that differences are audible.

bob