14 ms·

Wow, this address a major problem I have. I have decent hearing, but when I'm in a noisy environment like a bar, I can hear but can't understand what other peo

• Isamu 10y ago
  You get no sympathy from people who can hear what's going on. They simply will not understand why you are so withdrawn. Oddly enough, my wife has somewhat degraded hearing but she hears a lot better in noisy environments than I do. Must be like applying a filter to the noise, maybe she is losing the frequencies that cause confusion for me. This will be an interesting product to try out - I hope there are more in the area of enhancing everyday interactions, rather than providing new distractions. Enhanced vision is another area where I am hoping to see new products.
  • koalaman 10y ago
    It's hard to express sympathy when you can't be understood. :)
• rl3 10y ago
  Same. I often wonder how bartenders do it. Granted it doesn't stop me from being outgoing, but people having to almost shout or otherwise talk directly into my ear gets old after a while. I suspect it's not an issue with hearing itself so much as the brain processing the information. In quiet conditions I can usually hear whispered conversations a good distance away.
  • BurningFrog 10y ago
    The bartender API is very limited. The customer is either ordering one of a few enumerated things, or asking one of 3 questions.
    • burntwater 10y ago
      This. As a severely hearing-impaired individual, context is EVERYTHING in a conversation. Or, like, 95%. In all but the best environments, I'm not actually hearing what you're saying, I'm pattern matching your garbled sounds to the closet logical words my brain can think of. The narrower the context, the better and faster I can do this. This is why, for example, I don't answer unexpected phone calls. If I don't know the initial context of the call, the first minute is going to be very confusing for both parties.
      • victorhooi 10y ago
        burntwater is absolutely correct. The human brain is remarkably good at filling in the blanks. I rely on context, plus lip-reading, plus the sounds I do hear to figure out the rest. For context - I'm not severely hearing impaired - I only have a mild-to-moderate loss in both ears, but it's enough to hamper me in normal conversations, particularly in group settings or noisy environments. I use Siemens hearing aids at work, at church etc. - basically, anything that's not 1:1, or where I can't easily ask them to repeat things constantly.
  • sophacles 10y ago
    I suspect my experiences bartending lead me to having the problem GP describes. Too much noise over and over... (although the summer jobs working with machinery and not enough ear protection and all the concerts probably contribute too). But during bartending a few things are true: * it's not too loud when you have time for a conversation. * if it is too loud to converse, you're probably busy enough that interaction very simplified to a small subset of language - so lip reading becomes a big contributor to understanding. (e.g. basic greeting scripts, "can i get a..." and so on) * when it's loud, it's pretty socially acceptable for the bartender to lean in to the conversation to hear - the "personal space bubble" of the speaker tends to shrink in that instance. Similarly a bartender asking you to repeat that a bit louder isn't considered rude. edit: I wish I was clever enough to say this in as few words as BurningFrog did :)
  • Cafey 10y ago
    I really really am bad at hearing anything in a noisy environment yet I was a bartender for 3 years and never had a problem getting someone's order. You get used to reading people's lips given that there is only a limited amount of things they could be ordering. Very often I didn't understand what the clients were talking to me about but then I'd hear keywords like "beer" or "tequila" and the quantity they want is very often requested using hand gestures (finger count). Even then, the usual conversation between a bartender and the client is very short. To the contrary, when getting together with a bunch of friends you have to listen to entire stories which is way harder.
• randlet 10y ago
  Are you sure you have decent hearing? I thought I could hear what people were saying in noisy environments, but couldn't understand anything. This was one of the major symptoms for me before I was diagnosed with moderate/severe hearing loss. It's very isolating. No problems now with a decent set of hearing aids. Have yourself tested! The quality of life improvement from a set of hearing aids is incredible! edit: I was 31 when I was diagnosed, so don't think because you're young that you're immune. Generally hearing loss is very gradual so you don't really notice it. If you frequently have to ask people to repeat themselves though...
  • freyr 10y ago
    I became unable to understand conversations in noisy bars and restaurants. I had my hearing tested, and it was normal. I can hear one person talking quietly from across the house, but can't understand a person right next to me in a bar. It's very frustrating.
    • randlet 10y ago
      Agreed. Social situations can be frustrating/depressing if you can't converse like everyone else.
    • maxxxxx 10y ago
      Same for me. I have had my hearing tested several times and always had pretty good scores. But I still don't understand people in loud environments. It would be interesting to try a hearing aid.
    • canes123456 10y ago
      Some people with Autism Spectrum Disorder have this issue. I believe I had it when I was younger but it less noticeable right now.
    • kmonsen 10y ago
      I have this as well, and respond with talking louder since I think it is the same for everyone. Turns out it is not.
• jseliger 10y ago
  Try these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044DEESS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0044DEESS. I keep a pair in my pocket. They're shockingly good, and unless someone is looking closely for them they're not real noticeable. They're also cheap enough that a lost pair is not catastrophic.
  • Griffinsauce 10y ago
    Your ears compress sound to a degree when it gets loud, I wonder whether there might be a difference in that capacity. I also can't hear a word in a noisy environment, I'm relatively sure my hearing is "fine"
  • Jtsummers 10y ago
    I've been using these [0] for years at the initial recommendation of a colleague who goes shooting frequently. They've been great for travel on airlines, and for nights out at loud(er) events. [0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DH0YOS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DH0YOS
  • robert_tweed 10y ago
    I was going to say the same thing. The general name for these is attenuating ear plugs. A lot of musicians, especially drummers, wear them on stage so they can hear their own instrument over everything else, at a sensible volume. They vary primarily in their frequency response: some are flat and others are designed to cut specific frequencies more than others (e.g, for bass players vs guitar players). I found out about them from a drummer who was wearing them in a nightclub after a gig. I initially thought he'd left them in by mistake, but he swore it made having conversations a lot easier. That, and he had no plans to go deaf from the loudness of the music (and you don't learn the drums if you dislike loud music).
    • djsumdog 10y ago
      I see a lot of live music. I am very lucky a doctor long ago told me I need to guard myself from hearing loss (he was treating me for an ear infection). I always carry earplugs when I go to shows. Sometimes it's the nice plastic ones; sometimes I lose those and go back to the foam ones. Sometimes I forget and uses pieces of tissue (don't do that. When those pieces get stuck, it's slightly terrifying picking them out of your ear). Last time I took one of those free hearing tests, I could still hear everything I should for my age range. I can still hear high pitch ringing (like from old CRT monitors), so I think my hearing is in decent shape for being in my 30s. Hearing loss is a big problem in the US and it's spreading throughout the world. You don't want to be shelling out money of hearing aids later on in life (some are covered by medicare, but still) and once you start losing hearing .. you start to become isolated from people and friends. You will miss things and people won't bother repeating them or you'll just laugh and pretend you heard. It's isolating (according to a sign language instructor I had -- who wasn't deaf, but very impaired). TL;DR Take care of your ears! Always have earplugs if you see live music a lot!
• acoubrcre8d 10y ago
  I have great hearing and totally agree. I am always annoyed being out with a bunch of friends around a restaurant table and no one can hear further than about 2 people away from them. This seems kind of neat!
• dpeck 10y ago
  I'm the same and it drives me (and my wife if Im honest) crazy. For whatever reason I pick up background noise with much more intensity than most people. Surround sound is useless to me, I'll hear cricket chirps and background music over the dialog. I can more of less push through it at a pub and in other social situations but its extremely draining.
• CorvusCrypto 10y ago
  Actually just getting some earplugs helps this. Will filter your noise and make it really easy to have a conversation at normal level with someone near you. Use this myself for sports events, sometimes lounges, and of course flights. They cost way less than these headphones and work just as well to quell the problem you have. Or if you don't want to use earplugs, just plug your ears when someone is talking to you. Same effect really.
  • nialo 10y ago
    I've recently started carrying earplugs on my keychain for basically this reason, everything just sounds much better. The only tricky thing is remembering to speak loudly enough so that everyone else can hear me.
    • boobsbr 10y ago
      Never thought about carrying them in the keychain, nice idea.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• steamer25 10y ago
  There's a little bit of a life-hack for this (assuming your hearing really is okay) in loud environments... Push the little flap of the recipient's ear (the flap is called the 'tragus') over their ear canal to seal it off. Then you can lean in and speak loudly enough to overcome the ambient noise without hurting them.
  • amag 10y ago
    Assuming of course that the recipient is ok with you touching their ears...
  • thank 10y ago
    THank
• santoriv 10y ago
  My mother has this issue (and so do I). Her doctor told her that the problem was a cognitive issue. Apparently some brains have a hard time filtering all of the noise into something we can understand. Have no idea if it's true but seems plausible.
• dacracot 10y ago
  You have described my problem exactly. It's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. I've been tested and other than tinnitus, I'm told my hearing is normal. This could be awesome.
• sambe 10y ago
  This is an even bigger problem in a non-native language. Not just a social issue but hinders learning.
• nilkn 10y ago
  I have the opposite problem. I can understand people fine in noisy environments, but I can't speak loudly enough for other people to understand me. The end result is pretty much the same, though. I end up not really talking to people much in super noisy environments because it's too much of a struggle for me to try to talk loudly enough.
  • Cakez0r 10y ago
    Do you have a low voice? I think that's why I have the same problem. Lower voices don't seem to cut through noise as well as higher voices.
    • nilkn 10y ago
      It is low-ish, but not abnormally or excessively so.
  • dsmithatx 10y ago
    That's an early warning sign of Parkinson's disease. You might want to google and make sure you don't have any of the other early warning symptoms.
    • amelius 10y ago
      In any case, talk to a doctor about it. Perhaps a speech and language therapist could help you.
    • nilkn 10y ago
      It's very interesting and a little scary that you mention that because, while I don't have any of the other warning signs, my grandfather recently passed away just short of the age of 80 from complications due to Parkinson's. For my own sanity I don't want to jump to any conclusions but I'll look into it, and I thank you for the suggestion. For what it's worth my voice has been relatively low and soft my whole life, so it's not a recent change or development. (I'm currently 27.)
  • goldenkek 10y ago
• stcredzero 10y ago
  I often have difficulty parsing speech in noisy bar/club environs. This has always made me into a bit of a wallflower. Then I started dating a woman who was also very wallflowery, but mostly because it was a lot of effort for her to talk loudly. We ended up having a lot of arguments, because she'd say things to me, I'd tell her I couldn't understand what she was saying, then she'd refuse to talk louder but still hold me accountable for remembering what she said.
  • randlet 10y ago
    Oh how I know that feeling. The absolute biggest benefit of getting hearing aids was that my relationship with my wife improve immensely. Not joking at all, it was a constant source of friction between us even though logically we both knew neither one of us was really to blame.
• pc86 10y ago
  Not to piggy back off randlet, but I would venture to say that most people would consider being unable to hear conversation when there is background noise the opposite of "decent hearing."
• AceJohnny2 10y ago
  This is a known condition, apparently, called "Hidden Hearing Loss" and was covered here a couple months ago: http://www.wsj.com/articles/cant-hear-in-noisy-places-its-a-real-medical-condition-1474909624 http://www.wsj.com/articles/cant-hear-in-noisy-places-its-a-... (if the direct link from here gets you to the paywall, it looks like a referral thing. Oddly going to it form Twitter worked, though Incognito and Web didn't: https://mobile.twitter.com/Jieqian_Zhang/status/780613322097954816 https://mobile.twitter.com/Jieqian_Zhang/status/780613322097...) HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12637996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12637996 Direct link to the papers cited in the article: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep24907 http://www.nature.com/articles/srep24907 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812055/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812055/ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0162726 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... (you can guess I also have interest in the topic...)
  • boobsbr 10y ago
    Wow, never thought the synapses could be damaged. Very interesting to know, will tell the audiologist about these new tests. Also, the link from Twitter worked, but the direct link hit a paywall.
  • calebm 10y ago
    When I've described this problem to people in the past, I used my own term: "deconvolution issue". My mother and grandfather apparently have it too. Cool to see it's being researched.
    • torrent-of-ions 10y ago
      I think of it more as a "demultiplexing" difficulty. I can hear the sound coming from their mouth, I just can't separate it from everything else and decode the language. I know that my hearing is good, even above average, and I don't suffer from tinnitus. I used to notice that I would have to ask people to repeat things a lot, and that other people didn't seem to have the same problem. I've found that watching the speaker's lips helps to some extent. My own theory is that nobody can, in fact, hear everything that people say in such situations. But their mind does a great deal of work filling in the gaps. Our languages are surprisingly redundant, and quite often you can pick up everything you need to know from broken audio and other input like facial expressions and gesticulation. I think that my brain is worse at filling in the gaps.
• gaius 10y ago
  The Army Rangers have headphones that cancel gunfire and explosions and enhance voices, they say they can have a normal conversation in the middle of a battle. Very clever!
  • remarkEon 10y ago
    Yeah, Peltors. Just don't forget to replace the batteries.
    • jeff_marshall 10y ago
      Indeed. I've got a set for range use and they work great (esp. on outdoor ranges).
  • fapjacks 10y ago
    Not only Rangers, but any unit that will order them for you.
• ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Same issue, although exacerbated by a misspent youth near noise sources like teletypes and machine rooms. Certain high frequencies in my hearing spectrum were damaged which, as an audiologist demonstrated for me once, means I can't hear some allophones, especially from people with high voices (children, women). When its nominally quiet, my brain can fill in what those allophones would have been and I "hear" them normally, but when there is wide frequency noise in that spectrum the missing allophones cause the phonemes to become impossible to decipher. She had this tool that would play back words and could remove frequencies with a notch filter and replace the missing sound with either silence (still understandable) or noise (not understandable). Tuning a hearing aid to boost those weak areas works well for me with the exception that hearing aids don't benefit from the brains ability to focus on sounds in particular directions so they enhance the spectrum areas from all around rather than just where I'm looking.
• kumaraman 10y ago
  Auditory processing disorder sums up a lot of what you are describing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder
• vgrafe 10y ago
  Happy to see (with your comment and subs) that I am not alone. For my case, it is explained by the fact my right ear is deaf (I was born like that). The left one has perfect hearing, but I guess missing stereoscopic sound totally changes the game.
• jwr 10y ago
  There is a lot more to hearing than just your ear. Signals have to be processed by the brain and that's often where the problem is. A good example are children with sensory integration problems: a child will often go through phases when it will have trouble "hearing", but the actual problem will be with processing. You then have to repeat things several times so that the child "hears" you, but at the same time the child will have no problem with hearing quiet sounds. Kids are especially interesting because as they grow (and with therapy) you can observe as these things change over time.
• tn13 10y ago
  Get medical help to test yourself. This is not to scare you but there are large number of sometime even trivial health issues that might cause this. It will hurt your social professional life. I use to avoid drive-through, phone conversations etc. because there was always a 10% chance that everything I heard seemed like other person mumbling something. Medical help helped me correct the problem.
  • boobsbr 10y ago
    If you don't mind me prodding, what was the condition causing this for you?
• codazoda 10y ago
  I... Uh... Doesn't everyone have this problem? Maybe this is another reason people think I'm brooding. I can only hear the people directly next to me in a noisy environment; not the people on the other end of a table for example. I typically assumed they couldn't hear me either, but now I'm wondering.
  • dghughes 10y ago
    I work in a noisy (slot tech in a casino) and I was able to adapt to it to be able to hear people distinctly in a very noisy environment it's called the cocktail party effect. Through a crowd of people and and multiple noisy machines I could hear someone ask me "Where is the bathroom" or "How do I..." I guess it's a learned skill. Up to a limit I mean it's not a superhuman skill just existing in certain circumstances and in my regular environment. I'm sure I'd be terrible in a noisy environment I'm not used to.
  • webmaven 10y ago
    Your description marks you as about average. What GP is describing is not being able to hear/understand people that are right next to them in a noisy environment, unless someone is literally talking directly into their ear. That said, yes, it is entirely possible that someone at the other end of the table could hear and understand you.
• lanius 10y ago
  I'm not alone! I always assumed I had something like the auditory equivalent of color blindness.
• intsunny 10y ago
  Please checkout King–Kopetzky syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Kopetzky_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Kopetzky_syndrome
• dzhiurgis 10y ago
  For me it's the height. I either have to lean in for 10 cm lower or I start missing pieces.
• rubyfan 10y ago
  +1 I have this same issue. I can hear but can't quite make out the details especially in places with a lot of background or competing noises. This looks like a new spin on an old concept though. Perhaps it's made more practical since we all carry phones now.
• ghurtado 10y ago
  You may have auditory loss that affects only certain frequencies. The problem is easily masked in a quiet environment, since your brain has more aural information to put the words together, but in a noisy environment, where many of the speech frequencies are cancelled by ambient sounds, you don't receive enough aural information.
• technofiend 10y ago
  Too many 80s rock concerts mean there's a giant downward notch in the center of my hearing range. I gave up on socializing in loud environments long ago because people speaking is what I hear the least. I will definitely give these a try!
• acupofnope 10y ago
  +1 I've been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder somewhat recently. Before the diagnosis, I had my hearing tested a couple of times over the course of my adult life but nothing was found. It was during my ASD diagnosis that I've learned that people on the spectrum may sometimes have sensory issues, and sometimes hearing is affected. It explained why I can't understand what people were saying in noisy environments where everyone else seemed to carry out conversations normally.
  • teddyc 10y ago
    same
• augustflanagan 10y ago
  I have this exact same problem. It's been something that has bothered me for over a decade. I'm really excited to see if these work for me!
• baldfat 10y ago
  Had that my whole life. I was diagnosed with "Hyper-Hearing" were normal people have a frequency bumps and dips in their hearing my was a straight line all at the top. Now that I am lower I have ringing ears and lost the high frequency range of sound to a "slightly bellow level" and will probably never have to have hearing aids. My brain just couldn't figure out how to filter out all that noise.
• efrafa 10y ago
  As a non native speaker I have same issue.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• tim333 10y ago
  Possible fix: I suffer a bit from tinnitus and as a result have taken to carrying earplugs for noisy environments. I find in addition to protecting my ears I can hear conversation better. I think basically the ears work better in the normal db range and don't function so well if overloaded. My kit, approximately: Holder: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Large-Emergency-Cash-or-Pill-Keyring-Aluminium-Capsule-/381760068916 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Large-Emergency-Cash-or-Pill-Keyri... Wax ear plugs: http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Muffle-Wax-Earplugs-5-Pairs-_1129526/ http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Muffle-Wax-Earplugs-5-Pairs-_1... Wax is quite good because you can adjust the effect - put in loosely they don't block much, squish them down and they do. I also chop them down to fit which the packet advises against. I recommend for tinnitus avoidance if nothing else.
• pmarreck 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensorineural_hearing_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensorineural_hearing_loss
• nkrisc 10y ago
  I have the exact same problem. This could really be a life changer for me. Only recently I was at a reception at work after one of our town hall style meetings and in the large room with many people talking, I could barely hold a conversation. It literally took all my mental effort just to hear what the person if front of me was saying. I left shortly after because I couldn't talk to anyone.
• kolinko 10y ago
  Did you get tested for ADHD? Many people with ADHD have problems with focusing on a conversation, especially when there is a lot of noise around. Their hearing is perfectly fine, but they drift away a hundred times a minute. You don't have to move a lot to have ADHD. Here is a fun test/explaination on how it works in adults: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iozAFIr3BEw#t=50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iozAFIr3BEw#t=50
  • boobsbr 10y ago
    Yes, a psychiatrist evaluated me prescribed Ritalin. I had a nice improvement in concentration and attention to what I'm doing at work, but I haven't gone out to a bar or concert since, to try talking in a noisy environment.
• sdfjkl 10y ago
  Sounds (no pun intended) like APD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder
• arunc 10y ago
  I thought I'm alone!
• mgv11 10y ago
  Woah, so many people "suffer" from the same thing! edit. As for these hearphones, would be interesting to test them, but dont think I've used them. Never seen the problem as a big thing. More like annoyance perhaps. And yes, I am cheap.