Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#42
|
|||
|
|||
|
#43
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: wrote: wrote: I know that you have a body of data which is consistent, but it would appear that most or all of the blind tests supporting your position were not designed in acknowledgement of basic subjective phemonena, What is a subjective phenomenon? I'm only familiar with the objective kind. Something that happens in the realm of personal experience. You mean like stubbing your toe? "Subjective phenomenon" is an oxymoron. "You're just playing at semantics here." Actually, Mike's right. A standard use of the word "phenomenon" is to mean an appearance, and the way something appears to a person is subjective. What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Do you mean we'd need evidence in order to have reason to look at whether the paradigm is limited, or we'd need evidence in order to decide that it is in fact limited? If the former, that sure looks circular. Isn't Mike's point that the reason why we haven't seen countervailing evidence is that it hasn't sufficiently been probed for? Mark |
#44
|
|||
|
|||
"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. It too is interesting that clear differences are stated when switching is said to have occured when in fact only one bit of gear was used. These two small facts are such stubborn things and do drive anyone wanting to have a fuller understanding to consider perception artifacts as an explanation.. |
#45
|
|||
|
|||
Mark DeBellis wrote:
wrote: wrote: What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Do you mean we'd need evidence in order to have reason to look at whether the paradigm is limited, or we'd need evidence in order to decide that it is in fact limited? The former, and it is up to you to supply that evidence, if you think the theory is incorrect. If the former, that sure looks circular. Isn't Mike's point that the reason why we haven't seen countervailing evidence is that it hasn't sufficiently been probed for? In other words, we cling to the theory that elephants can't fly because we haven't expended the effort to find elephants that can fly. But we have many reasons to believe that elephants can't fly, beyond the lack of immediate examples. And, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseum, we have many reasons to believe that certain sonic differences are inaudible. Are you prepared to argue that zoologists ought to expend time searching for flying elephants, simply because a few ill-informed people believe that elephants might be able to fly? And if not, why do you make the identical demand of psychoacousticians? That's why the burden of proof rests with the elephant-flight partisans and their golden-eared equivalents to come up with some evidence. (And it is not circular reasoning to demand this as a first step.) But you'll notice that the partisans are not expending a whit of effort to come up with that evidence. Instead, you wave your arms and make pseudoscientific arguments like the one above. bob |
#46
|
|||
|
|||
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." It too is interesting that clear differences are stated when switching is said to have occured when in fact only one bit of gear was used. These two small facts are such stubborn things and do drive anyone wanting to have a fuller understanding to consider perception artifacts as an explanation.. It's very simple: people's experience of music is a combined result of the sound, and how one responds to the sound (call it the "subtle internal dance"). If either one changes, then the experience changes. I find that the internal response to the sound is something that can be modelled and understood, and explains a great many experiences, as well as casts light on the shortcomings of the common blind test. Mike |
#47
|
|||
|
|||
Mark DeBellis wrote:
wrote: wrote: wrote: wrote: I know that you have a body of data which is consistent, but it would appear that most or all of the blind tests supporting your position were not designed in acknowledgement of basic subjective phemonena, What is a subjective phenomenon? I'm only familiar with the objective kind. Something that happens in the realm of personal experience. You mean like stubbing your toe? "Subjective phenomenon" is an oxymoron. Stubbing your toe involves two components: the objective one (the one that outside observers can see; the physical collision of toe with object, as well as any physical noises/body language made by the collidee); and the subjective one (your experience of stubbing your toe). "You're just playing at semantics here." Actually, Mike's right. A standard use of the word "phenomenon" is to mean an appearance, and the way something appears to a person is subjective. Thanks, Mark. Whatever the language we use, I find that internal experience is something that can be modelled and understood. What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Do you mean we'd need evidence in order to have reason to look at whether the paradigm is limited, or we'd need evidence in order to decide that it is in fact limited? If the former, that sure looks circular. Isn't Mike's point that the reason why we haven't seen countervailing evidence is that it hasn't sufficiently been probed for? Yeah, that's my point. For example, I would like to see the dozens of blind tests that controlled for whether the subjects were listening to sound as sound, or sound as music. Mike |
#48
|
|||
|
|||
Buster Mudd wrote:
wrote: Buster Mudd wrote: wrote: ...the fact that a spontaneous observation of a property of sound A involves a different perceptual mechanism than asking oneself, yes or no, if A is present in the sound. A paradigm which proceeds on the assumption that there is no such distinction, would not be able to show that it exists. You contend that it is a "fact" that such a distinction exists. I on the other hand contend that discriminations of sonic properties are, by virtue of their being discriminations of sonic properties, involve the same perceptual mechanism. The "asking oneself" either before or after the discrimination may appear to frame the perception differently, but it is the discrimination itself, not the framing, which determines the perceptual mechanism. You might be right. But does your contention imply any model of perception and consciousness? Let's say the brain contains lower-level perceptual mechanisms, and also filters that bring those perceptions to consciousness. My contention is that the state of consciousness affects what information reaches it. Spontaneously noticing things is one state of consciousness, I contend, while looking for specific things is another. It may be possible that the lower-level mechanism is the same in each case. Does your contention imply anything about consciousness? Such as an ability to focus on details at will, or a comprehensive mechanism that brings all relevant information into consciousness regardless of what one is looking for? It just implies that you have to make a conscious discrimination in order to parse the thought "this sounds brighter than that", and that once that conscious discrimination has been made, it is now moot to argue about whether the discrimination was arrived at via Purposeful Hunting or Spontaneous Noticing, because your consciousness no longer has access to that "information". Even if Purposeful Hunting did exist as a neural activity that was physically different from that of Spontaneous Noticing, that neural activity has been overwritten by your conscious discrimination, and is no longer available. I don't follow you. First of all, it is obvious to me that purposeful hunting exists as an activity separate from spontaneous noticing (good terminology!). If you went into a forest saying you will write down everything that captures your attention but not predefining that, your list would be different than if you went into the forest saying you will write down a list of all trees you encounter. Secondly, I have no problem with an awareness of which activity I'm engaged in, and making an observation does not overwrite this awareness. Mike |
#49
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: wrote: wrote: I know that you have a body of data which is consistent, but it would appear that most or all of the blind tests supporting your position were not designed in acknowledgement of basic subjective phemonena, What is a subjective phenomenon? I'm only familiar with the objective kind. Something that happens in the realm of personal experience. You mean like stubbing your toe? "Subjective phenomenon" is an oxymoron. What you are talking about (and doing) is misinterpretation of an objective phenomenon (which is, of course, redundant). The objective phenomenon we are talking about is this: You listened to something twice, and it sounded different to you the second time. That is objectively true. The problem comes when you try to explain that difference. That I said the words out loud "I hear a difference" is objective. What exactly I heard, or what experience I constructed out of those sounds, is subjective. such as the fact that a spontaneous observation of a property of sound A involves a different perceptual mechanism than asking oneself, yes or no, if A is present in the sound. This is not a fact. A paradigm which proceeds on the assumption that there is no such distinction, would not be able to show that it exists. But a paradigm that assumed the distinction was irrelevant could. Hmm, I don't follow you here. For example, suppose we design an experiment to measure the speed of light. The nature of light, whether particle or wave, is not relevant to the experiment. How then, would the experiment show that light is either particle or wave? I.e., it would turn out the same either way. The speed of light is not a paradigm. Assumptions about its nature, or the decision a priori that its nature is not relevant, are/is a paradigm. And so far, the only "distinctions" I've seen made by subjectivists have been either fanciful or semantic. You're the one who thinks there's some big mystery here. Precisely. My statement was that the objectivist prefers to choose a paradigm in which the more mysterious observations are declared a priori to be not worthy of investigation, probably because he doesn't like having untidy dark corners in the universe. One doesn't "choose" a paradigm. This is a scientific paradigm, and there are no dark corners in the little bit of the universe involving differentiation of audio components. Everything you claim, the paradigm can explain. That's why it's the paradigm. Well, in my experience, one can choose what's important and what's not; what is worthy of investigation and what not. It appears to me that psycho-acoustics, as you describe it, has implicitly chosen to deemphasize variation in one's use of attention, and has implicitly deemphasized distinctions in experience when they can only be verbally reported and not measured. Nonsense. Psychoacoustics doesn't "de-emphasize" anything. It rules things out empirically. One thing it has ruled out empirically is the notion that detection of small changes in sound can improve when we extend the time between the changes. I would say rather that detection of small changes, for a certain set of changes, when listened to as sound (not as music), and when discriminated via comparison and the intention to hear differences in sound, reveals that detection improves with less separation in time---at least over the time scales that have been investigated. The paradigm is in the choice of these particular foundational assumptions--the choice of differences to be investigated, the means of using awareness, and so on. That's the important difference between psychoacoustics researchers and you. They test things empirically. They do not simply make up "facts" in their own head. As far as "everything you claim, the paradigm can explain." Well, exactly. My paradigm can also explain everything you claim. First of all, you don't have a paradigm. Or, to be more specific, you don't have a theory. All you have is blind belief. What makes you think I have blind belief? And there's a whole host of things you can't explain, like why our perceptions differ sighted vs. blind and why measurements correlate with audibility tests. Perceptions differ under all sorts of conditions. Some measurements correlate with some styles of audibility tests. This does not mean that we fully understand how measurements do or do not correlate with, for example, musical beauty. Mike The fact that a theory explains everything does not make it right. Explaining things is the ONLY thing that makes a theory right. We're also the ones who are willing to be proven wrong. What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Right. And I haven't seen anything I can't explain, either. Why do blind and sighted perceptions differ? Why do audibility tests correlate with measurements? Why does our ability to notice small differences decline (sharply) with time? Actually, you can't *explain* anything. You haven't got a theory. bob |
#50
|
|||
|
|||
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 8 Sep 2005 05:30:38 GMT, wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: In your comparison above. suppose when A and B were 'switched', what in fact was done, was that A was replaced with A again. There is a high likelihood that you would perceive the two presentations as sounding 'different'. You might confidently decide that you preferred 'B' to 'A' at the end of your 4-week trial. When, in fact, there had been NO DIFFERENCE. What would you conclude if that happened? I would conclude what I already know: that under some conditions people can perceive a difference when there is, to the best of our knowledge, no difference (although it is important to note that we cannot establish with certainty there was no difference). Which part of "A was replaced with A again" was unclear to you? I happen to think that not everything in the world can be perfectly controlled. What I DON'T do is conclude that all feelings about audio components are untrustworthy. I'm willing to look at at *how* these feelings arise and under what conditions. I'm willing to accept that subtle subjective phenomena get interfered with when one tries to look directly at them--unlike the objectivist, who is unwilling to consider, or actually afraid, of this possibility: since it makes the world less easy to understand. Actually, it is the objectivists who *do* acknowledge that subtle subjective phenomena get interfered with - that's why we favour blind testing. We are also well aware of Heisenberg's work, and I am more than aware that measuring something frequently alters it. However, there seems no evidence that this applies to audio comparisons, where all the usual 'stress' and 'gestalt' objections are trivially easy to overcome. Well, as you say, knowledge of the component under test does influence perception. But so does being asked to make a conceptualized discrimination a large number of times in a relatively short stretch of time. My objection is not "the usual stress or gestalt" type -- it is that one's use of their awareness affects what one notices, and that differences in audio components are not the sort that can be conceptualized. I would like to see one, or hopefully many, tests that control for these factors. Aside from its proven lack of sensitivity, there's absolutely no objection to long-term, as relaxed as you like, comparisons - so long as they remain blind. Not exactly rocket science to do this with cables, after all. But how many "long-term, as relaxed as you like" comparisons have taken place? Can you document, say, a dozen of them, along with the specific conditions (length of time, directions to the test subjects)? Mike |
#51
|
|||
|
|||
|
#52
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: wrote: wrote: What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Do you mean we'd need evidence in order to have reason to look at whether the paradigm is limited, or we'd need evidence in order to decide that it is in fact limited? The former, and it is up to you to supply that evidence, if you think the theory is incorrect. What you seem to mean by that statement is that you personally won't change your mind until someone else supplies you with some new evidence, and that you aren't interested in criticisms of your methods. Mark and I are perfectly free to discuss the limitations in your methods from a more introspective or philosophic point of view, whether or not we happen to be independently wealthy people who have the resources to conduct large-scale experiments. If the former, that sure looks circular. Isn't Mike's point that the reason why we haven't seen countervailing evidence is that it hasn't sufficiently been probed for? In other words, we cling to the theory that elephants can't fly because we haven't expended the effort to find elephants that can fly. It is more like you have decided there is one way to find out if elephants can fly. Say, push them off a cliff. When they all go splat, you decide they can't fly. When it would be more correct to say they can't fly under those conditions. But we have many reasons to believe that elephants can't fly, beyond the lack of immediate examples. And, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseum, we have many reasons to believe that certain sonic differences are inaudible. Well correct me if I am wrong, but the main reason to believe that certain differences are not audible is that we have a model of the ear and brain. But how was this model validated? Are you prepared to argue that zoologists ought to expend time searching for flying elephants, simply because a few ill-informed people believe that elephants might be able to fly? And if not, why do you make the identical demand of psychoacousticians? No one is demanding anything of psychoacousticians or anyone else. We are pointing out weaknesses in your methods. You are free to respond or not respond. That's why the burden of proof rests with the elephant-flight partisans and their golden-eared equivalents to come up with some evidence. (And it is not circular reasoning to demand this as a first step.) I don't think it is a matter of "burden of proof." What you are saying is that, in your mind, the "other side" has the burden of proof. From my perspective, I'm just trying to determine what's true, and I'll take evidence from either "side". But you'll notice that the partisans are not expending a whit of effort to come up with that evidence. What makes you think that? Instead, you wave your arms and make pseudoscientific arguments like the one above. What exactly does this phrase "arm-waving" mean? What is pseudoscientific about these statements? Mike |
#53
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: wrote: wrote: wrote: I know that you have a body of data which is consistent, but it would appear that most or all of the blind tests supporting your position were not designed in acknowledgement of basic subjective phemonena, What is a subjective phenomenon? I'm only familiar with the objective kind. Something that happens in the realm of personal experience. You mean like stubbing your toe? "Subjective phenomenon" is an oxymoron. What you are talking about (and doing) is misinterpretation of an objective phenomenon (which is, of course, redundant). The objective phenomenon we are talking about is this: You listened to something twice, and it sounded different to you the second time. That is objectively true. The problem comes when you try to explain that difference. That I said the words out loud "I hear a difference" is objective. What exactly I heard, or what experience I constructed out of those sounds, is subjective. Indeed. And the truth-claims you make about the *device* that produced the sound, are testable. In an extreme case (auditory hallucination) you can 'hear' a 'sound' where there is *nothing* producing it, outside of neural activity. But the quotes are definitely needed to write that sentence. So, why gives such primacy of place to uncorroborated subjective claims? What value does an uncorroborated claim of 'it sounded like this to me' have, to anyone else? -- -S |
#54
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 8 Sep 2005 05:30:38 GMT, wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: In your comparison above. suppose when A and B were 'switched', what in fact was done, was that A was replaced with A again. There is a high likelihood that you would perceive the two presentations as sounding 'different'. You might confidently decide that you preferred 'B' to 'A' at the end of your 4-week trial. When, in fact, there had been NO DIFFERENCE. What would you conclude if that happened? I would conclude what I already know: that under some conditions people can perceive a difference when there is, to the best of our knowledge, no difference (although it is important to note that we cannot establish with certainty there was no difference). Which part of "A was replaced with A again" was unclear to you? I happen to think that not everything in the world can be perfectly controlled. 'A replaced by A' can be extremely well controlled. It can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that nothing about 'A' changed that would affect the audio output. Of course, if one one to start expressing *unreasonable* doubts, well, that's audiophiles for ya. But how many "long-term, as relaxed as you like" comparisons have taken place? Can you document, say, a dozen of them, along with the specific conditions (length of time, directions to the test subjects)? Isn't it fascinating how some audiophiles demand multiple rigorous experiments when the indications are 'no difference', yet remain so endlessly 'open minded' about sighted results? -- -S |
#56
|
|||
|
|||
"Well, as you say, knowledge of the component under test does influence
perception. But so does being asked to make a conceptualized discrimination The first above has been demonstrated when humans are being tested in all fields. The second has not been confirmed. When one of the hifi mags do an "audition" and make reference to comparing this bit of gear to another does this mean their perception has changed and their perceptions suspect? "But how many "long-term, as relaxed as you like" comparisons have taken place? Can you document, say, a dozen of them, along with the specific conditions (length of time, directions to the test subjects)?" Irrelevant, it is up to those advocating such a protocol to do so. Have you done subjective "tests" with your left hand embedded up to the wrist in cheese doodles? If not how can you claim your "tests" legitimate? In science little time is given to considering that which experience in all human testing has found consistent over and over again, knowing what is being tested changes the outcomes. The alternative of the hifi mag approach is almost completely useless in the extreme, except as a bit of entertaining literary fluff. |
#57
|
|||
|
|||
|
#58
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: Nonsense. Psychoacoustics doesn't "de-emphasize" anything. It rules things out empirically. One thing it has ruled out empirically is the notion that detection of small changes in sound can improve when we extend the time between the changes. I would say rather that detection of small changes, for a certain set of changes, when listened to as sound (not as music), and when discriminated via comparison and the intention to hear differences in sound, reveals that detection improves with less separation in time---at least over the time scales that have been investigated. The paradigm is in the choice of these particular foundational assumptions--the choice of differences to be investigated, the means of using awareness, and so on. We are not "choosing the differences to be investigated." We know what the differences are between two audio components. You are speculating that there are differences we don't know about. Such baseless speculations are what make your arguments a form of pseudoscience. If you could say, "Here's a difference that your listening tests are missing," or "Here's another form of listening test that finds differences mroe subtle than yours," then you'd have some basis for the argument you are making. But you can't. That's the important difference between psychoacoustics researchers and you. They test things empirically. They do not simply make up "facts" in their own head. As far as "everything you claim, the paradigm can explain." Well, exactly. My paradigm can also explain everything you claim. First of all, you don't have a paradigm. Or, to be more specific, you don't have a theory. All you have is blind belief. What makes you think I have blind belief? Because you have no evidence to support your assertions. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. And there's a whole host of things you can't explain, like why our perceptions differ sighted vs. blind and why measurements correlate with audibility tests. Perceptions differ under all sorts of conditions. Some measurements correlate with some styles of audibility tests. This does not mean that we fully understand how measurements do or do not correlate with, for example, musical beauty. Our measurements don't correlate with musical beauty at all. But then, audio reproduction has nothing to do with musical beauty. Beethoven is not more beautiful because he's played on a high-end audio system rather than a mini-system. Now, if you mean "perceptions of musical beauty," then you'd have to demonstrate that our perceptions of musical beauty can differ when listening to audio systems that are (by currently accepted scientific standards) audibly indistinguishable. And you can't do that. bob |
#59
|
|||
|
|||
|
#60
|
|||
|
|||
Buster Mudd wrote:
wrote: First of all, it is obvious to me that purposeful hunting exists as an activity separate from spontaneous noticing (good terminology!). Right...*when* it is obvious to you that you are conciously doing one or the other activity, then it seems easy to confidently state which one you are doing. But that doesn't mean you are acurately reporting your concious state, only that you are reporting your perception of your concious state to the best of your abilities. IOW, you might *think* you are in Spontaneous Noticing mode, but you may be deluding yourself. Secondly, I have no problem with an awareness of which activity I'm engaged in, and making an observation does not overwrite this awareness. That's what you think. However, there is a substantial body of literature in the fields of cognitive science and neuropsychology that suggest A) that what we think is going on in our brain is not the same as what is going on in our brain; and B) that concious discriminations do indeed overwrite the perceptions which prompted these discriminations; the determination "I have perceived this" takes precedence over whatever stimuli you were (temporarily) perceiving...and often they are not the same! All this is to say we don't know exactly what we were doing, and I agree. That makes it even harder to control for these factors in a blind test. I think that what you are doing with your awareness affects what you hear, so this factor should be controlled, but no one has ever described a test to me in which it is. Mike |
#61
|
|||
|
|||
|
#62
|
|||
|
|||
|
#63
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: wrote: Nonsense. Psychoacoustics doesn't "de-emphasize" anything. It rules things out empirically. One thing it has ruled out empirically is the notion that detection of small changes in sound can improve when we extend the time between the changes. I would say rather that detection of small changes, for a certain set of changes, when listened to as sound (not as music), and when discriminated via comparison and the intention to hear differences in sound, reveals that detection improves with less separation in time---at least over the time scales that have been investigated. The paradigm is in the choice of these particular foundational assumptions--the choice of differences to be investigated, the means of using awareness, and so on. We are not "choosing the differences to be investigated." Most of Moore is devoted to explaining the results of playing test signals to subjects. The test signals are chosen, and the differences between them (such as amplitude or pitch) are chosen. We know what the differences are between two audio components. You are speculating that there are differences we don't know about. Such baseless speculations are what make your arguments a form of pseudoscience. I'm not "speculating" there are differences we don't know about-- I'm pointing out that we haven't done any well-designed experiments to determine if different components produce different subjective impressions. If you could say, "Here's a difference that your listening tests are missing," or "Here's another form of listening test that finds differences mroe subtle than yours," then you'd have some basis for the argument you are making. But you can't. That's the important difference between psychoacoustics researchers and you. They test things empirically. They do not simply make up "facts" in their own head. As far as "everything you claim, the paradigm can explain." Well, exactly. My paradigm can also explain everything you claim. First of all, you don't have a paradigm. Or, to be more specific, you don't have a theory. All you have is blind belief. What makes you think I have blind belief? Because you have no evidence to support your assertions. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. For me to have "blind belief," first I would have to have some fixed beliefs. I don't. I have working hypotheses, and I have unanswered questions. I think that investigating perception should be informed both by introspection and experiments. You don't count introspection as "evidence." I do. And finally, you haven't shown me any evidence that isn't based on a fixed model of how subjective impressions are formed. And there's a whole host of things you can't explain, like why our perceptions differ sighted vs. blind and why measurements correlate with audibility tests. Perceptions differ under all sorts of conditions. Some measurements correlate with some styles of audibility tests. This does not mean that we fully understand how measurements do or do not correlate with, for example, musical beauty. Our measurements don't correlate with musical beauty at all. But then, audio reproduction has nothing to do with musical beauty. Beethoven is not more beautiful because he's played on a high-end audio system rather than a mini-system. Now, if you mean "perceptions of musical beauty," then you'd have to demonstrate that our perceptions of musical beauty can differ when listening to audio systems that are (by currently accepted scientific standards) audibly indistinguishable. And you can't do that. The "currently accepted scientific standards" would not be able to determine if A & B are audibly indistinguishable, if the distinction between them was a matter of musical beauty. Mike |
#64
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
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. Certainly many things that affect how a listener forms their subjective impressions have changed. 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. Quick switching will hinder perception of time-diffuse properties of the sound. We could try to do DBTs in ways more analogous to the practices of ill-informed audiophiles, but why would we want to? Just to be clear, I don't advocate tests that correspond to the "practicies of audiophiles." I advocate the investigation of perception under a variety of conditions. Monadic testing would be an interesting possibility. Mike |
#65
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Buster Mudd wrote: wrote: First of all, it is obvious to me that purposeful hunting exists as an activity separate from spontaneous noticing (good terminology!). Right...*when* it is obvious to you that you are conciously doing one or the other activity, then it seems easy to confidently state which one you are doing. But that doesn't mean you are acurately reporting your concious state, only that you are reporting your perception of your concious state to the best of your abilities. IOW, you might *think* you are in Spontaneous Noticing mode, but you may be deluding yourself. Secondly, I have no problem with an awareness of which activity I'm engaged in, and making an observation does not overwrite this awareness. That's what you think. However, there is a substantial body of literature in the fields of cognitive science and neuropsychology that suggest A) that what we think is going on in our brain is not the same as what is going on in our brain; and B) that concious discriminations do indeed overwrite the perceptions which prompted these discriminations; the determination "I have perceived this" takes precedence over whatever stimuli you were (temporarily) perceiving...and often they are not the same! All this is to say we don't know exactly what we were doing, and I agree. That makes it even harder to control for these factors in a blind test. I think that what you are doing with your awareness affects what you hear Which gets right back to my earlier points: 1) It doesn't matter what we are "doing with our awareness" because once we have made a conscious discrimination about what we have become aware of, we are doing something different from whatever we might have been doing before, something which overwrites our ability to make use of that previous awareness. And 2) that making conscious discriminations about sonic qualities is the same cognitive process regardless of what we were "doing with our awareness" prior to making the discrimination. |
#66
|
|||
|
|||
Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: It's very simple: people's experience of music is a combined result of the sound, and how one responds to the sound (call it the "subtle internal dance"). If either one changes, then the experience changes. I find that the internal response to the sound is something that can be modelled and understood, and explains a great many experiences, as well as casts light on the shortcomings of the common blind test. Such experience does not necessarily reflect any *real difference* in the sound or the sound-producing device -- so why talk like it does? I've developed my model from experiences in which there are obvious differences in the sound-- such as listening to a live performance, and then listening to a recording of it. But those two sounds are quite easily demonstrated to be different by independent, objective means. You cannot conclude from *that* that all *perceived* differences are likely to be real. That's not what I conclude. My working hypothesis consists of these assertions: (1) that the experience of music depends on time-diffuse properties (2) that the experience of music depends on what one is paying attention to (3) that the experience of music is a function of both the sound and the internal response (the "subtle internal dance" to give one example) (4) that subtle qualities of music cannot be conceptualized and the perception of them depends on context (5) that certain factors affect how one constructs one's response to the sound (such as the number of times one has listened to the same piece, and other aspects of context) No comparisons between different sounds are required to observe these things. They don't depend on perceiving that cables are different, or cd players are different. Mike |
#67
|
|||
|
|||
Okay, so I understand that your opinion is that my assertions are not
science and are "evidence-free". You have an extremely low opinion of my thought process, and you attempt to insult me by claiming I'm even lower than the Intelligent Design folks. Regarding intelligent design folks and identifying holes in the theory: I'm not aware of anything you think you can't explain. That's part of my objection: once you model subjective perception (musical "feeling") as an arbitrary function which a priori is not explainable, then by circular reasoning you end up with nothing unexplainable. I happen to think that experiments about perception should be informed by observations on the "inside". I do not claim one is above the other: but when observations from the "inside" suggest a certain model, then experiments to confirm or rule out that model should happen. If invoking "insider" knowledge is not science, then so be it. OTOH, I think that you have a very specific notion of what "science" should be, and that's just your opinion, and not a universal truth about how one should investigate the world. You remind me of the behaviorists in biology. And furthermore, basing your entire model on a small set of experimental methods is in my opinion not scientifically sound, even if you end up with nothing you can't explain. Mike |
#68
|
|||
|
|||
|
#69
|
|||
|
|||
"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."" Indeed so, which is why I keep drawing the focus back to the cloth as the most minimal blinding approach, it avoids all the usual suspects the subjective folk present. Just a cloth, nothing but the cloth, so help me God. This has been done and reported upon here and is not a "what if" dodge. "It's very simple: people's experience of music is a combined result of the sound, and how one responds to the sound (call it the "subtle internal dance"). If either one changes, then the experience changes. I find that the internal response to the sound is something that can be modelled and understood, and explains a great many experiences, as well as casts light on the shortcomings of the common blind test." Huh, with the right meter, pun intended, it could be poetry. Again to the point, when switching is said to be happening and it is not, responses and reported perceptions switch accordingly. This tells us the difference is not in the signal but is an artifact of the perception process. |
#70
|
|||
|
|||
Buster Mudd wrote:
wrote: Buster Mudd wrote: wrote: First of all, it is obvious to me that purposeful hunting exists as an activity separate from spontaneous noticing (good terminology!). Right...*when* it is obvious to you that you are conciously doing one or the other activity, then it seems easy to confidently state which one you are doing. But that doesn't mean you are acurately reporting your concious state, only that you are reporting your perception of your concious state to the best of your abilities. IOW, you might *think* you are in Spontaneous Noticing mode, but you may be deluding yourself. Secondly, I have no problem with an awareness of which activity I'm engaged in, and making an observation does not overwrite this awareness. That's what you think. However, there is a substantial body of literature in the fields of cognitive science and neuropsychology that suggest A) that what we think is going on in our brain is not the same as what is going on in our brain; and B) that concious discriminations do indeed overwrite the perceptions which prompted these discriminations; the determination "I have perceived this" takes precedence over whatever stimuli you were (temporarily) perceiving...and often they are not the same! All this is to say we don't know exactly what we were doing, and I agree. That makes it even harder to control for these factors in a blind test. I think that what you are doing with your awareness affects what you hear Which gets right back to my earlier points: 1) It doesn't matter what we are "doing with our awareness" because once we have made a conscious discrimination about what we have become aware of, we are doing something different from whatever we might have been doing before, something which overwrites our ability to make use of that previous awareness. I don't follow this. Say that a conscious impression impression overwrites the previous mental process--that doesn't in itself mean the previous mental process doesn't matter. Secondly, I don't think that this "overwriting" function necessarily destroys all previous awareness. I would agree that it is hard to be aware of a subtle internal process without influencing it; but this is something that can practiced. Zen meditators do. And 2) that making conscious discriminations about sonic qualities is the same cognitive process regardless of what we were "doing with our awareness" prior to making the discrimination. I didn't use the word "discrimination." "Impression" is more like it. However, I still don't see how this follows from the presumption that we aren't aware of what we do. We can still be doing different things while being unaware. I also don't see how any of this contradicts the simple observation that you tend to notice what you're paying attention to, and that you can choose what to pay attention to, and that sometimes things you aren't paying attention to come to your awareness. Your assertion that awareness itself "destroys" the prior awareness seems to reinforce the idea that one will be aware of different things depending on what one is paying attention to. Mike |
#71
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote: wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: It's very simple: people's experience of music is a combined result of the sound, and how one responds to the sound (call it the "subtle internal dance"). If either one changes, then the experience changes. I find that the internal response to the sound is something that can be modelled and understood, and explains a great many experiences, as well as casts light on the shortcomings of the common blind test. Such experience does not necessarily reflect any *real difference* in the sound or the sound-producing device -- so why talk like it does? I've developed my model from experiences in which there are obvious differences in the sound-- such as listening to a live performance, and then listening to a recording of it. But those two sounds are quite easily demonstrated to be different by independent, objective means. You cannot conclude from *that* that all *perceived* differences are likely to be real. That's not what I conclude. My working hypothesis consists of these assertions: (1) that the experience of music depends on time-diffuse properties (2) that the experience of music depends on what one is paying attention to (3) that the experience of music is a function of both the sound and the internal response (the "subtle internal dance" to give one example) (4) that subtle qualities of music cannot be conceptualized and the perception of them depends on context (5) that certain factors affect how one constructs one's response to the sound (such as the number of times one has listened to the same piece, and other aspects of context) No comparisons between different sounds are required to observe these things. They don't depend on perceiving that cables are different, or cd players are different. Just curious, does this rickety house of sheer speculation still stand when an audio system is playing, say, spoken-word CDs rather than *music*? Btw, you left out step 6: God did it. It's no more or less well supported than your other five steps, and it explains so much. -- -S |
#72
|
|||
|
|||
|
#73
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: Most of Moore is devoted to explaining the results of playing test signals to subjects. The test signals are chosen, and the differences between them (such as amplitude or pitch) are chosen. Well, of course, because Moore is building on prior work which shows, among other things, that this is the most effective way to investigate such questions. Just because you don't know the science, doesn't mean the science doesn't exist. snip I think that investigating perception should be informed both by introspection and experiments. You don't count introspection as "evidence." I do. And is it any wonder that I label your arguments pseudoscience? And finally, you haven't shown me any evidence that isn't based on a fixed model of how subjective impressions are formed. So? The model works. And you haven't got any alternative model that works. snip The "currently accepted scientific standards" would not be able to determine if A & B are audibly indistinguishable, if the distinction between them was a matter of musical beauty. You miss the point. The current model holds that any difference in what you should be calling "perception of musical beauty" can only be the result of differences that are audible in standard DBTs. It does not matter that current experimental standards can't detect something that can't happen. Actually, *you* miss the point. A test which cannot detect musical beauty would not be able to validate your claim. Mike |
#74
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: wrote: wrote: What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Do you mean we'd need evidence in order to have reason to look at whether the paradigm is limited, or we'd need evidence in order to decide that it is in fact limited? The former, and it is up to you to supply that evidence, if you think the theory is incorrect. It's part of good scientific methodology to know its own limitations. As I understand it, Mike is saying that it would be desirable to look at a wider class of data than the current paradigm delivers. If you're saying that the current data give us no reason to think that that would be desirable, that's just begging the question. If the former, that sure looks circular. Isn't Mike's point that the reason why we haven't seen countervailing evidence is that it hasn't sufficiently been probed for? In other words, we cling to the theory that elephants can't fly because we haven't expended the effort to find elephants that can fly. But we have many reasons to believe that elephants can't fly, beyond the lack of immediate examples. And, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseum, we have many reasons to believe that certain sonic differences are inaudible. We have certain *criteria* for audibility/inaudibility that we take to be giving us such reasons, and (at least some of) those are what's in question. Are you prepared to argue that zoologists ought to expend time searching for flying elephants, simply because a few ill-informed people believe that elephants might be able to fly? And if not, why do you make the identical demand of psychoacousticians? That's why the burden of proof rests with the elephant-flight partisans and their golden-eared equivalents to come up with some evidence. (And it is not circular reasoning to demand this as a first step.) The standard required here is not that of evidence that there are (which it's science's business to get, following proper procedures), but rather that of a plausible argument that there *could be*, differences that don't get captured with the prevailing methodology. (Why isn't that enough to justify inquiry into the possible limitations of the approach? What could be the intellectual virtue of insisting, we don't have to look until it's absolutely obligatory?) And earlier I did give such an argument, to the effect that there's no reason to assume that differences in the perception of temporally extended wholes will always be reflected in discrimination (where credit should be given here to earlier remarks by Harry Lavo). But you'll notice that the partisans are not expending a whit of effort to come up with that evidence. Why can it not be useful in itself to comment on the existing paradigm, and remark on its limitations? Not everybody who can do that is a psychoacoustician. Instead, you wave your arms and make pseudoscientific arguments like the one above. A misnomer, because pseudoscience is, typically, something that pretends to be science, but lacks that trait of science which is to continually subject its own assumptions to careful inquiry. Mark |
#75
|
|||
|
|||
In article ,
wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: It's very simple: people's experience of music is a combined result of the sound, and how one responds to the sound (call it the "subtle internal dance"). If either one changes, then the experience changes. I find that the internal response to the sound is something that can be modelled and understood, and explains a great many experiences, as well as casts light on the shortcomings of the common blind test. Such experience does not necessarily reflect any *real difference* in the sound or the sound-producing device -- so why talk like it does? I've developed my model from experiences in which there are obvious differences in the sound-- such as listening to a live performance, and then listening to a recording of it. But those two sounds are quite easily demonstrated to be different by independent, objective means. You cannot conclude from *that* that all *perceived* differences are likely to be real. That's not what I conclude. My working hypothesis consists of these assertions: (1) that the experience of music depends on time-diffuse properties (2) that the experience of music depends on what one is paying attention to (3) that the experience of music is a function of both the sound and the internal response (the "subtle internal dance" to give one example) (4) that subtle qualities of music cannot be conceptualized and the perception of them depends on context (5) that certain factors affect how one constructs one's response to the sound (such as the number of times one has listened to the same piece, and other aspects of context) No comparisons between different sounds are required to observe these things. They don't depend on perceiving that cables are different, or cd players are different. Mike I heard today that the upcoming Tanglewood 2 Symposium in Boston will include some very important research on the nature of hearing music. It should be very interesting. |
#76
|
|||
|
|||
|
#77
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: wrote: wrote: What you don't seem to be willing to do, is to look at whether your standards of proof have themselves defined a limited paradigm. Sure we are. But we'd need evidence that this is the case. Specifically, we'd need phenomena that we cannot explain. So far, we haven't seen any. Do you mean we'd need evidence in order to have reason to look at whether the paradigm is limited, or we'd need evidence in order to decide that it is in fact limited? The former, and it is up to you to supply that evidence, if you think the theory is incorrect. If the former, that sure looks circular. Isn't Mike's point that the reason why we haven't seen countervailing evidence is that it hasn't sufficiently been probed for? In other words, we cling to the theory that elephants can't fly because we haven't expended the effort to find elephants that can fly. But we have many reasons to believe that elephants can't fly, beyond the lack of immediate examples. And, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseum, we have many reasons to believe that certain sonic differences are inaudible. Are you prepared to argue that zoologists ought to expend time searching for flying elephants, simply because a few ill-informed people believe that elephants might be able to fly? And if not, why do you make the identical demand of psychoacousticians? p.s. If I understand him right, Mike is saying that perceptual set or attitude can make a difference. It seems to me the logical response to this is to ask, why should we think that that's true, and why would that point to a limitation in the current approach? In other words, to argue and discuss. It does seem to me that to ratchet things up too quickly to the demand for "evidence" puts things at a later stage than the conversation naturally takes, or should take. This is a discussion group, not a data reporting group (we don't necessarily have the framework yet for collecting what would be relevant data). I would rather see people explain here *why* the methodology works, or why it is or is not immune to Mike's objections, or what problems they see with the objections. (Which to some extent they have done. "Sighted testing has such-and-such problems" is, so far as it goes, a helpful and constructive response; "Science is on our side" less so in my opinion.) I would rather see more actual substantive argument and discussion than continual sniping over where the burden of proof lies; how (as Mike asks) does the latter get at truth? About flying elephants. We in fact have excellent reason to think there are no flying elephants. If, however, all our observations are of birds in cages then it might not even occur to us to ask how fast they can fly! Mark |
#78
|
|||
|
|||
On 2 Oct 2005 17:11:09 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote:
wrote: Instead, you wave your arms and make pseudoscientific arguments like the one above. A misnomer, because pseudoscience is, typically, something that pretends to be science, but lacks that trait of science which is to continually subject its own assumptions to careful inquiry. Actually no, because you are insisting that we investigate the possibility that the Moon really is made of green cheese, contrary to all previous scientific evidence. That is pseudoscience, because you offer no *reason* to suppose that this might be the case. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
#79
|
|||
|
|||
On 2 Oct 2005 17:18:41 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote:
About flying elephants. We in fact have excellent reason to think there are no flying elephants. If, however, all our observations are of birds in cages then it might not even occur to us to ask how fast they can fly! Would that be a loaded or unloaded African swallow? -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
#80
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
wrote: You miss the point. The current model holds that any difference in what you should be calling "perception of musical beauty" can only be the result of differences that are audible in standard DBTs. It does not matter that current experimental standards can't detect something that can't happen. Actually, *you* miss the point. A test which cannot detect musical beauty would not be able to validate your claim. First, for the THIRD time, you are not talking about "musical beauty." You are talking about *perceptions of musical beauty.* That perception is no different from any subjective impression of what one hears--preference, harshness, smoothness, etc. [insert desired subjectivist buzzword here]. The question is, are there unknown audible differences between, say, cables, that cannot be detected in traditional DBTs but can differently affect our subjective impressions of what we hear? And the answer is no, there are no such unknown audible differences, and therefore there cannot be any unknown audible differences that can affect subjective impressions. That's the theory, as it stands today. To crack this, you have to tell us what that mystery difference is, or you have to demonstrate through some sort of listening test that such a difference exists. To argue, as you do, that our tests are not adequate to detect something that we have no evidence for the existence of is to engage is a pseudoscientific parlor game. bob |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Not In Love With Tivoli Audio? Maybe Here is Why-FAQ and Exegesis | Audio Opinions | |||
NPR reports on new brain research music | High End Audio | |||
Installing stand-by switch | Vacuum Tubes | |||
More cable questions! | Tech |