4 ms·

We hugely underestimate how processed all of our senses are. Hearing doesn't listen to pressure waves. It does some very complex real time source separation to

We hugely underestimate how processed all of our senses are. Hearing doesn't listen to pressure waves. It does some very complex real time source separation to distinguish between different sound sources. Then it performs overtone and resonance matching to identify different speakers. Then it follows up with phoneme recognition to identify words - which somehow identifies phoneme invariants across a wide range of voice types, including kids, male/female, local/foreign and social register(class)/accent. Then it recognises emotional cues from intonation, which again are invariant across a huge range of sources. And then finally its labels all of that as linguistic metadata, converts the phonemes into words, and parses the word combinations. It's not until you try to listen to a foreign language that you hear the almost unprocessed audio for what it is. And even that still has elements of accent and intonation recognition.

kridsdale2 4y ago
Non linguistic elements of verbal communication are so universal nobody even really notices when fictional alien species in media communicate to human protagonists. It's noncontroversial to the audience that hostile/non-hostile, instruction, friendliness, cooperation, etc, are all embedded in the tones of all animals, robots, and even tree creatures throughout the universe.
- henrydark 4y ago
  This isn't surprising given that it's well known that we share more than 90% of our DNA with tree creatures across the universe
mahathu 4y ago
>And then finally its labels all of that as linguistic metadata, converts the phonemes into words, and parses the word combinations. How did the scientific studies show this?
- gryson 4y ago
  You're asking for a summary of the entire fields of speech perception and psycholinguistics. A good place to start is the groundbreaking speech perception experiments done at Haskins Laboratories in the 1950s by people such as Alvin Liberman.
jvm___ 4y ago
And, if it's your native language, you can't help but process it. This is why I like talking to 4-year-olds, they see the world as it truely is, and can communicate it back out. They don't have all the conditioned learning the rest of us have, but can see a clearer picture without bias.
jesusofnazarath 4y ago
antiterra 4y ago
I’ve heard garbled words over a bad connection that I didn’t understand, only to have my brain parse them seconds later without intentional effort. It makes me wonder, is the language center processing the memorized version of sound here or is it reprocessing at the lower level?
- SllX 4y ago
  This is basically an everyday experience for me, and not limited to telephone calls. My hearing is not great, and I’ll often ask someone to repeat something only to finally finish parsing it about a second after I asked because in the intervening time my brain reconstructed a signal from a bunch of noise.
  - foobazgt 4y ago
    I've had the same experience my entire life. That said, testing shows my hearing isn't great, but it's not horrible either. I even have an exceptional ability to identify actors solely by their voice when others can't identify them at all. I've often wondered if there is something else going on that runs deeper than just surface level "hearing". Like I'm hearing slower but more deeply.
    - SllX 4y ago
      I don’t know if I’m hearing more deeply, but basically the same experience: failed every hearing test I ever took but I’m not deaf either. Just need to rely more on post-processing than others, and the best I’ve been able to figure is I didn’t get enough socialization at critical points of my early development, which is true, I just can’t prove that it’s also related to my hearing.
    - bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
      Congratulations, you might have APD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder I suspect I have it, too. I seem to experience sound differently than other people. Separating voices from background noise is HARD, but I'm also very good (I think) at recognizing actors by voice.

kridsdale2 4y ago

Non linguistic elements of verbal communication are so universal nobody even really notices when fictional alien species in media communicate to human protagonists. It's noncontroversial to the audience that hostile/non-hostile, instruction, friendliness, cooperation, etc, are all embedded in the tones of all animals, robots, and even tree creatures throughout the universe.

henrydark 4y ago
This isn't surprising given that it's well known that we share more than 90% of our DNA with tree creatures across the universe

mahathu 4y ago

>And then finally its labels all of that as linguistic metadata, converts the phonemes into words, and parses the word combinations. How did the scientific studies show this?

gryson 4y ago
You're asking for a summary of the entire fields of speech perception and psycholinguistics. A good place to start is the groundbreaking speech perception experiments done at Haskins Laboratories in the 1950s by people such as Alvin Liberman.

jvm___ 4y ago

And, if it's your native language, you can't help but process it. This is why I like talking to 4-year-olds, they see the world as it truely is, and can communicate it back out. They don't have all the conditioned learning the rest of us have, but can see a clearer picture without bias.

jesusofnazarath 4y ago

antiterra 4y ago

I’ve heard garbled words over a bad connection that I didn’t understand, only to have my brain parse them seconds later without intentional effort. It makes me wonder, is the language center processing the memorized version of sound here or is it reprocessing at the lower level?

SllX 4y ago
This is basically an everyday experience for me, and not limited to telephone calls. My hearing is not great, and I’ll often ask someone to repeat something only to finally finish parsing it about a second after I asked because in the intervening time my brain reconstructed a signal from a bunch of noise.
- foobazgt 4y ago
  I've had the same experience my entire life. That said, testing shows my hearing isn't great, but it's not horrible either. I even have an exceptional ability to identify actors solely by their voice when others can't identify them at all. I've often wondered if there is something else going on that runs deeper than just surface level "hearing". Like I'm hearing slower but more deeply.
  - SllX 4y ago
    I don’t know if I’m hearing more deeply, but basically the same experience: failed every hearing test I ever took but I’m not deaf either. Just need to rely more on post-processing than others, and the best I’ve been able to figure is I didn’t get enough socialization at critical points of my early development, which is true, I just can’t prove that it’s also related to my hearing.
  - bqmjjx0kac 4y ago
    Congratulations, you might have APD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder I suspect I have it, too. I seem to experience sound differently than other people. Separating voices from background noise is HARD, but I'm also very good (I think) at recognizing actors by voice.