What we measure is what we hear
Reply #58 – 2013-01-02 11:10:34
You must separate cognative effects from peripheral effects, please. Cognative effects are as plastic as plastic gets (i.e. they can change, adapt, etc). The periphery is very nearly fixed, with simple feedback mechanisms from the CNS. You are augmenting the detail level (and I'm liking to go deeper in a field I don't know in finer details) but this doesn't change the whole picture. Correct me if I'm wrong: we could see it, for sake of simplicity, like a two block system. The first block which houses the transducer (ear) and its low level driver logic (peripheral auditory system), the second block which houses "business logic" (cognitive functions like, say, construct vectors of stimuli and match them with previously known patterns). The second block takes its inputs mainly from the first, but is able to change its functions if properly instructed and is also able to aggregate other inputs, from for example sight, to select different functions and give different interpretations to a same input from the first block. Now, for example, spectral or temporal masking is a resolution limit of the first block, you cannot "train" someone to improve upon this aspect, but you can instruct the second block to overcome some of this limitation integrating its input with other stimuli: when an individual sees, for example, a certain cable between the amp and the speakers he is listening to and he was told those cables possess a "superior resolution power", he actually perceives (in the sense Greynol gave to this term) "firmer bass", "silky trebles", "deeper soundstage" etc etc... even if swapping cables haven't changed anything at first block level. Relating to what you call "training", correct me once more if I'm missing the point, is actually like improving functions of second block to better recognize patters in stimuli, but using only input from the first block. So, to go back to the topic of this thread, better measures of a device doesn't directly translate in better perception, as long as their influence is limited to the first block (and the improvement in measurable quantity is beyond its resolving power).