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Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level
- jonnycomputer 5y agoI was really hoping for an in-depth discussion of noise within the brain. Then I was really hoping for an in-depth discussion of how and why certain kinds of noise may be helpful, in both creativity and/or maintaining focus. Its not that I disagree with anything that was written, but I really was hoping for something whose tldr didn't amount to: bad noise bad, good noise good.
- Dirtymortain 5y agoÁudios from Hemi-sync are specially designed for concentration. Using binaural beats and white/pink noise it can enhance synchronisation in the brain while the noise allows it to have something "to work on"
- banku_brougham 5y agoMaybe I should read it again, this did not answer the question posed.
- davegri 5y agoThis whole article conflates "noise" with "alternative signal"
- rosstex 5y agoThis article does everything except actually answering the question in the title.
- revolvingocelot 5y agoIt's like a recipe blog, but for half-baked musings
- ninjinxo 5y agoI think it may be a GPT3 blog: >Noise is necessary for our brains to function in an orderly fashion. In the book The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver says that “The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.”7 Andrew Smart adds that “there are many circumstances in which the addition of the right amount of noise actually boosts the signal.” So within the randomness of the noise, we can achieve greater creativity as the randomness of evolution brings the best out of humans.
- exciteabletom 5y agoIt's insane to me that we have already got to a point where we are struggling to differentiate CG text from real articles.
- jcun4128 5y agoHmm imagine a GTP3 based VTuber on YT that used a random character generator
- anonu 5y agoI like the thought. The article is not very coherent, you're right... But it did fool me.
- 1cvmask 5y agoClearly more noise than signal from the author.
- jonnycomputer 5y agoIt isn't a good article. Some of the things don't make sense. And it shies away from anything in depth. It really may be a GPT3 blog post, as others suggest.
- Isthatablackgsd 5y agoI am Deaf myself and using my hearing aids all of my life. One thing I discovered that silence is the best productivity focus for me. During my job, I always keep my hearing aids off. This helps with my ADHD as I am easily distracted when there is a sound involved, sometime causes me to ‘hyperfocus’ in my “world” than doing my job. And interesting that I found that keeping my hearing aids off makes the time around me become slow. With the hearing aids on, it amplified the stimulation on my brain in a way which make it feel like the time is in turbo mode. I recently discovered this “ability” and start doing my job without hearing aids. Basically, silence is golden for me and helps a lot with my productivity.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI have ADHD, and when it works well, the hyper-focus effect is similar to what you describe with your hearing aids turned off. But for me, the outside world's time seems to go faster, not slower. It's like the more I'm focusing on my task at hand, the less I notice the passage of time around me. I'm curious why our hyper-focus experiences differ in that way.
- Isthatablackgsd 5y agoMy theory it is something to do with our senses. Since I have a hearing disability, so that ‘hearing’ sense is not functioning as in turn amplifying my other senses. I am going with the assumption that you are hearing (it a Deaf community lingo for people who have functioning hearings), so you have five senses operating at the same time. For me, I only have four senses operating at the same time. So with the hearing aid, my hearing sense will be “on” which maybe put more work for my brain to process everything else. Without the hearing aid, which my hearing sense is simply off. So, my brain can spend all of the “processing power” into other four senses which made me feel like the passage of time becoming slow. That is my theory is what I have so far. I don’t know if this is valid theory.
- bduerst 5y agoThe phenomenon you're describing psychological flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) Where time perception starts to skip as the brain becomes hyper focused on a task. One of the things I've noticed (having ADD) is that it's easy to enter into flow and accomplish much, but can be difficult to master what you enter flow with.
- jleyank 5y agoWhy not phrase this as “things not seen as distracting can help, while things seen as distracting can hurt”. For me, I can often debug real well to tunes as long as there’s no words. Having to listen to words breaks the flow. But to create hard code please leave me alone, go away and shut the door.
- dannyr 5y agoSame with me as well but add music with language I don't understand.
- zzzeek 5y agowent looking for some interesting neurological findings and found a very poor repurposing of a Nate Silver quote that was referring to statistics, not neurology.
- jdowner 5y agoI had a similar hope. Not long into the article, it was apparent that the author was not using the term 'noise' in a particularly well-defined way. For me, 'noise' is unstructured sound. People talking is structured, which is why it is a problem. I used to block out people in the office by listening to heavy metal, but in the end I found listening to actual noise was more effective for me to get my work done. So I was hoping the article was going to dig more into that side of things.
- ladyattis 5y agoFor me, it's not so much noise but temperature and air freshness. I don't know why but if the stale is a tad too stale in my home office I just get distracted and can't focus well so I wind up opening the window before starting work so I can freshen the air and then close it to minimize the amount of city noises from creeping in. But I'll also say sound is important as well. It's why I like having a more clicky keyboard although my office mates are probably frustrated by my preference. A little bit of noise in the background is nice whereas full-on chatter pretty much puts my work to a stop.
- Karawebnetwork 5y agoHave you ever tried to monitor your CO2 levels? I thought it was all about temperature until I got one and learned that my home office climbs up to 2500 ppm. At this level, it creates: "Fatigue, loss of focus and concentration, uncomfortable 'stuffy' feeling in the air"
- ssully 5y agoI worked with a group whose office was basically a big supply area converted into an office to hold around 7 cubicles. Zero windows, and while I am sure the HVAC system cycled in fresh air, I doubt it was enough because by lunch time I was ready to fall asleep whenever I worked in there. Biggest perk of working from home was having control over my environment. Because of that, I think I feel the best I have in years.
- oldie 5y ago2500ppm? Good grief. I notice a slight blunting of my mental edge at about 1000ppm. I always maintain enough ventilation to keep below about 800ppm. I don't guess; I monitor. At work, in our delapidated office, I've seen up to 1800ppm by lunchtime. No wonder no one can concentrate in there. It's not cheap, but you can buy heat-recovery ventilation for domestic properties: stale air is pumped out, fresh air is pumped in, and there's a heat-exchanger to warm the incoming air. Typically, air is extracted from rooms such as kitchens, bathrooms and toilets (so that you expel moisture, smoke and odours) and pumped into living spaces such as lounges, dining rooms and bedrooms. It doesn't provide enough air changes per hour to mitigate the danger from Covid-19, but it does do enough to keep CO2 levels down where you want them, and it avoids arguments with people who want to close all the windows and doors because they "don't like a draught".
- munificent 5y agoI've worked in private offices, cubicles, open plan offices, coffeeshops, libraries, and now many many hours in home both when other family members are around and when they aren't. I spend a lot of time thinking about sound and focus. The conclusion I came to is that humans have a few emotional needs in order to reach deep focus: 1. We need to not be distracted and we need to feel certainty that we will not be distracted. Before we are comfortable untaking the work to architect a giant mental castle, we need to feel confident that someone won't come around to kick it down. 2. At a more primitive, simian level, we need to feel that we're in a safe environment. It's hard to focus on code if you're worried that a tree is going to fall on you or a lion will drag you off into the jungle. When it comes to sound, those can be opposing. Because we are a social species, I think one of the things that makes us feel most secure is the ambient present of a fellow tribe. To our early ancestors, dead silence meant you were alone, and being alone in the wilderness was often a death sentence. We instinctively feel safest when we hear the chatter and hub-bub of relaxed tribemates puttering around nearby. We know we're not alone, that there are others will also be alerted if something happens, and that they also feel safe. But the presence of fellow people can also mean that at any moment one of them might wander over and start talking to us. So hearing that ambient chatter can make it really hard to focus. This is, I think, part of why working in a coffeeshop can be so effective. You get the sense of safety in numbers, but since they are all strangers and at least in the US the social norms go against talking to strangers, you know the odds are slim that you'll actually be interrupted.
- davidjytang 5y agoSome of my most productive sessions are at night all quiet just me and my computer with no music playing and for sure no one would be talking to me. (Sometimes I do to myself.) Maybe I don't care for tribemates?
- Terretta 5y agohttps://coffitivity.com https://coffitivity.com
- Uberphallus 5y ago> we need to feel certainty that we will not be distracted. This, so, much. Working from home with a young kid around, it always feels like something's gonna fall, the cat is gonna fight back, mom is gonna get mad at him for some reason, or simply he needs me to go play with him. I never know if I have 5 minutes or 3 hours. Nowadays I tend to not work so much during the day as I don't have the means to focus, then work into the night.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- anonu 5y agoHaving worked on a trading floor: noise is all around you: whether its people shouting at each other or the non-stop drone of CNBC in the background. I can say that the former was always very distracting but the latter was always welcome and did boost productivity and focus.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoFamously, Von Neumann did a lot of his work in front of the TV
- xnzlal 5y agoAnd Einstein hated von Neumann playing German march music next to his office. The question asked in the title pushes a false premise. Humans are different, I for example work fastest in complete silence.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sbmthakur 5y agoThis was true for Von Neumann: Von Neumann did some of his best work in noisy, chaotic environments, and once admonished his wife for preparing a quiet study for him to work in. He never used it, preferring the couple's living room with its television playing loudly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
- Karawebnetwork 5y agoSilence is the best productivity focus for me. I wear earplugs under active noise cancelling headphones.
- nyc111 5y agoI think, we should not call a conversation we hear "noise", it disturbs our focus but it's not noise. Noise has no pattern and no meaning. But the most disturbing sound is the sound that repeats in fixed intervals. I believe repeating sounds in high volume is even used as a form of torture. So airplane noise is torture because it's loud and it repeats.
- oldie 5y agoI find a conversation more distracting if it's relevant to me. If we have to cram developers into open plan offices then each feature team should be dispersed throughout the building, so that the discussions each person overhears are less relevant to the person overhearing them. Contrarian, or what? :-)
- noja 5y ago> So airplane noise is torture because it's loud and it repeats. Airplane noise when a plane flies above you? or airplane noise inside the plane? I find airplane noise within a plane great - it blocks out all the other noise.
- nyc111 5y agoAirplane noise, as mentioned in the article, they move close to an airport. I agree, inside the plane is white noise and not too bad.
- LegitShady 5y agoThis article doesn't seem to have corroborating scientific evidence.
- amatecha 5y agoHilarious to see this as I'm loudly listening to music many people would probably classify as "noise" ([0]) ... I've always found that highly dynamic music really helps me focus and somehow really "get into the zone", particularly when programming. I've noticed over the years that the mental stimulation that occurs is pretty substantial. Even music with lyrics/vocals, I don't find it distracting. I'd say it allows the ability to tune out "outside world" stuff and, like someone said above, feel comfortable that interruptions and distractions are not going to occur. I can simply be present and not thinking ahead/back about unrelated things. [0] https://accesstoarasaka.bandcamp.com/album/port https://accesstoarasaka.bandcamp.com/album/port
- Focalise 5y agoThis is why I built noisify.xyz
- Focalise 5y agoThis is why I built https://noisify.xyz https://noisify.xyz (for myself mainly)
- rootusrootus 5y agoI have always done my best coding with music cranked up to 11. No idea why, but the louder the better.
- alberth 5y agoIsn't it as simple as: to concentrate well - you need to remove distractions. Too much noise is distracting but, having zero noise is also distracting because inevitable something will cause noise and your attention will be drawn to it. Hence why white noise is so effective because it's the middle of these two things.
- cranesnakecode 5y agoI'd like to see less research about how we turn ourselves into optimal work machines and more research about how we reach a maximum vividness of conscious experience.
- andyp-kw 5y agoSo what's stopping you from researching it?
- tudorw 5y agointerruptions used to make me irritated, then I accepted that the irritation was more distracting than the interruption...
- bumbada 5y agoIt depends on where you are raised. I need to make deals in cities like New York, or London or Paris, Frankfurt, or Madrid. At buildings, specially hotels in those cities there is a constant hum, low level noise all the time that is specially present when you need to sleep. People that are raised in cities are hearing this sound all the time. I was raised outside them so for me this sound is alien but for those people it means "home". It was incredible being in Paris or Madrid center with COVID and hearing birds as background instead of road sounds. I need birds or sea waves or tree leaves sounds in order to work and focus. Cars or air blowers sounds are really distracting for me.
- taylorius 5y agoI think some background noise reduces distractions, because it causes our noticing apparatus to raise it's alert threshold, and we no longer notice every tiny micro-noise.
- markhahn 5y agothis is good. routine, easy-to-ignore, regular noise as a mechanism to relatively suppress distracting, oddball noises.
- SavantIdiot 5y agoUnless that noise is a person chewing gum with their mouth open and blowing/popping bubbles all day long. I'm looking at you, Lisa. Or chronic sniffles, Alan. Or excessively loud talking to customers while walking around your cube, Justin.
- lyrachord 5y agodistinguish flag: Supper stupid question title because the noise exists in the environment before you know.
- MarkLowenstein 5y agoI've tried a lot of sources of white noise while working. My previous favorite was "submarine sounds", but thanks to La Palma, I've learned that volcano sounds are the absolute best for my concentration.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- markhahn 5y agosuggesting that this is a function of some aspect of personality.
- aksss 5y agoSkinny Puppy
- notadoc 5y agoA little surprised nobody is sharing focus-centric Spotify playlists!
- wortelefant 5y agoI experimented a lot with different audio backgrounds during the writing phase of my phd. While music could be energizing, it quickly became a diatraction, while in a silent environment I easily felt tired or even sleepy. What worked best was an endless loop of 'brown noise', (similar to 'pink noise' or 'white noise') , it blankets out all other sounds but I don't hear it any more after a few minutes.
- 02020202 5y agowhat usually worked best for me is to listen to trance music. the usual rhythms worked best for the brain.