Quote from: rpp3po on 2010-01-24 21:45:35

Could you please state a particular case, for which you expect the forum to accept the limits of ABX testing, but haven't found acceptance, yet? One might get the impression that you are withholding this, so that your fantasy - as greynol called it so nicely  - doesn't get harmed.

Isn't this all in reality just a quite inflated straw man discussion for a true, but much lamer story, started in [a href='index.php?showtopic=77910']this[/a] thread:

You had the feeling that upsampling your CD audio to 96 kHz (before it gets upsampled again to 110kHz in your DAC1), A, sounded better than letting the high quality resampler of the DAC1 do the same in a single step, B. You probably did some sighted testing while expecting yourself to sustain maximum objectivity. That all didn't quite work out, since your brain had already locked into believing that A sounded better than B in sighted comparison (a super common phenomenon), but that could basically not be held up after ABX comparison.

Now instead of accepting that your auditory system was just as easily fooled as anyone else's is by sighted comparison, you start this straw man crusade to establish a theoretical pseudo basis for the feeling you had instead of having to feeling fooled. 

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-24 15:26:05

If the effect is greater with longer stimulus duration, then it may be that a brief exposure would make no detectable difference, but a longer exposure would create a difference in the way the passage sounds.

Who said ABX testing requires brief exposure?  Out of curiosity, are you talking "long exposure" like the duration of an album, or like decades?

Could you please state a particular case, for which you expect the forum to accept the limits of ABX testing, but haven't found acceptance, yet? One might get the impression that you are withholding this, so that your fantasy - as greynol called it so nicely  - doesn't get harmed.

Quote from: rpp3po on 2010-01-24 21:45:35

Could you please state a particular case, for which you expect the forum to accept the limits of ABX testing, but haven't found acceptance, yet? One might get the impression that you are withholding this, so that your fantasy - as greynol called it so nicely  - doesn't get harmed.

Isn't it enough that I have explained the conditions under which such a case would arise?  An effect that is undetectable in brief exposure but which increases with longer stimulus duration, say, one minute?  Isn't this something that would be hard to detect by having someone listen to 1-minute stretches, because, to repeat, she can't compare the sound of corresponding parts directly; but which also wouldn't show up in switching back and forth, because A and B would be affected equally by the prior exposure?  This is not a valid theoretical and methodological point?

I'm sorry, but is what I have been suggesting, and repeated in the previous paragraph, not clear?  Or are you saying that you know that it couldn't happen?

Quote from: DonP on 2010-01-24 21:52:41

Who said ABX testing requires brief exposure?  Out of curiosity, are you talking "long exposure" like the duration of an album, or like decades?

Long enough so that the subject can't reliably compare the sound of the two passages.

Isn't it enough that I have explained the conditions under which such a case would arise?

I'm sorry, but is what I have been suggesting, and repeated in the previous paragraph, not clear?  Or are you saying that you know that it couldn't happen?

But how does this affect the point?  What constitutes evidence for what does not depend on my motives, after all.

He's just continuing to ignore posts that don't support his fantasy.

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 05:44:56

Quote from: rpp3po on 2010-01-24 21:45:35

Could you please state a particular case, for which you expect the forum to accept the limits of ABX testing, but haven't found acceptance, yet? One might get the impression that you are withholding this, so that your fantasy - as greynol called it so nicely  - doesn't get harmed.

Isn't it enough that I have explained the conditions under which such a case would arise?  An effect that is undetectable in brief exposure but which increases with longer stimulus duration, say, one minute?  Isn't this something that would be hard to detect by having someone listen to 1-minute stretches, because, to repeat, she can't compare the sound of corresponding parts directly; but which also wouldn't show up in switching back and forth, because A and B would be affected equally by the prior exposure?  This is not a valid theoretical and methodological point?

I'm sorry, but is what I have been suggesting, and repeated in the previous paragraph, not clear?  Or are you saying that you know that it couldn't happen?

Ok, now, this is stuff and nonsense. There is no difference between whatever hypothetical, unproven effects would happen in an ABX test and that which would happen in any equal length non-ABX test. Period. ABX tests have no time limit, etc.  You've been told this several times, you've ducked, weaved, and evaded several points, and now you ask "isn't it enough".

No, it's not. I'm convinced you are simply trying to play games here, given the total bankruptcy of your own position, and your own failure to realize how your very silly objections (look, there has been a lot of study on what you hear and remember, and the relevant time periods appear to be 200 milliseconds and a few seconds, and then long-term memory.  This is not supposition, this is what people who have actually done work, investigated the subject, and attempted to learn more have actually discovered.) read on any other kind of listening test than ABX, including sighted.

You simply have nothing. Nothing.  I would suggest that you stop, if you really are sincere, which I sincerely doubt, and think a minute, and realize that the silliness, and I'm sorry, but based on the modern understanding it looks very, very silly, that you propose above would happen in any listening situation of the given length. There is nothing there about ABX tests or DBT's that is not the same for anything else.

I'm trying not to be rude, but either you're a total wind-up, or you simply aren't thinking through your own unsupported, untested ideas.

If you want to convince someone, figure out an appropriate test, run it, and submit it for publication in JASA or ASSP Transactions.

Your bit about 'forgetting what it sounded like' would be a problem in any test if there was anything to your idea, hence the idea isn't even well formed.

Finally, your introducing "priming" suggests to me that you don't know the difference between listener training and listener testing, and that you don't understand the duration of partial loudness memory. Perhaps a little literature review of the basics, and some reviewing of definitions such as "what is sound" in a technical sense might help you learn enough to make sense.

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 05:21:16

Quote from: DonP on 2010-01-24 21:52:41

Who said ABX testing requires brief exposure?  Out of curiosity, are you talking "long exposure" like the duration of an album, or like decades?

Long enough so that the subject can't reliably compare the sound of the two passages.

So if the subject can't reliably compare the sound, why does it matter anyway?

If there was a magical difference that will make her happier/sadder, she will reliably compare it over whatever long period of time is needed. If she can't, it's because it doesn't make her happy/sad (or ANY other secondary "effect"). If there's no reliable secondary effect, again, why does it matter?

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 05:19:26

But how does this affect the point?  What constitutes evidence for what does not depend on my motives, after all.

Well it does put it in the same category as tobacco company research showing that cigarettes are harmless, or a coal company treatise on global warming.

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 05:44:56

Isn't it enough that I have explained the conditions under which such a case would arise?

No, just because you suffer from postmodern analytical philosophy doesn't mean you'll find mercy here (nor a cure). Most of the time that disciple does not comes further than a few hypothetical papers referencing each other to be obsoleted by the next analytical trend. The length of a book has become too much for many proponents. Discussing hot air is often preferred, as you have just imposingly demonstrated.

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 05:44:56

I'm sorry, but is what I have been suggesting, and repeated in the previous paragraph, not clear?  Or are you saying that you know that it couldn't happen?

The point is, as I have tried to explain many times: the set of comparable thin air hypotheses, what could and could not exist and whatnot, is infinite. To decide which one of those is worth delving into, it helps if there is at least a tiny bit of empirical substance (e. g. unexpected results in an experiment), to limit the risk of totally wasting your own time and here particularly that of others.

You have failed to deliver on that request up to this moment and that's why you are confronted with so much opposition. It is wasting people's time, but still they aren't willing to let your rhetorical hanky-panky raise the impression that the HA community was ignorant.

That's why I asked for a particular case. If there was one, the discussion could be more fruitful.

But consider: is it possible to be angry without knowing it?

If you are saying that the sorts of things that a conventional ABX listening test could discover includes all of the things that any psychological test in general could discover, that seems false.

I'm sorry if the point isn't clear.  It's not that I am saying that there are effects or phenomena of the kind hypothesized.  It's that the relevant tests don't show that there aren't.  The question is what those tests show.

If you think that idea is not well formed, try the following.  Repeatedly compare two pairs of passages a minute in duration, where in each pair the passages are either identical or subtly different in timbre.  The task is to say whether they are the same or different.  In one version of the task, you listen straight through to each passage, and then you say whether you thought they were identical or not.  In another version, you switch back and forth between them.  Which do you think you are going to do better at?

Experience shows, I think, that the latter is going to be a more sensitive test.

But, if there are the sorts of effects I am asking about, ones that build up over time, then they will not show up on the latter sort of test because A and B are affected equally by the prior exposure to A (the signal that causes the effect) that is occurring in the test.

Is what I have just described not clear?  Do you know that there cannot be such effects?  Do the studies you refer to show that there cannot be?  Or are you just going to say that it is "very, very silly"?

If there is a scientific explanation, in terms of the duration of partial loudness memory, or anything else, that would answer these questions, then that's what I've been requesting from the very beginning.  Please, go ahead, explain in scientific terms why what I'm hypothesizing couldn't occur.

Yes, the space of possibilities is infinite.  But that doesn't mean that (as if it were legitimated by that abundance) we're entitled to latch onto some portion of it, and take an attitude of belief toward it, without a reason.

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 14:40:11

But consider: is it possible to be angry without knowing it?

Not if you're asking yourself if you're angry. If you're not that self-aware, then, again, there's no point in speculating whether there's a difference.

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 15:06:03

Yes, the space of possibilities is infinite.  But that doesn't mean that (as if it were legitimated by that abundance) we're entitled to latch onto some portion of it, and take an attitude of belief toward it, without a reason.

It does indeed sound like the fallacy that asserts if we don't have full information, we have none, doesn't it?

An effect that is undetectable in brief exposure but which increases with longer stimulus duration, say, one minute?

No, why do you think it sounds like that?

Are you disagreeing with my second sentence, then?  Do you think that we ought to have beliefs, assert them, encourage others to believe them, etc., without having a good reason to believe them, i.e., without being justified in believing them?

Quote from: Mark DeB on 2010-01-25 05:44:56

An effect that is undetectable in brief exposure but which increases with longer stimulus duration, say, one minute?

Would be detectable in an ABX test, given that there is no limit of duration in such a test.

You have been told several times that there is no time limit in an ABX test, which is a double blind test.  So continuing to use such examples is either disingenuous or fantastically ignorant.

I've made this point several times, only to have it ignored with a 'but,but, but'. Then when he asks for real time constants in listening, and I tell him some, he ignores them

Subjectivist Fallacies:
                                                                                        Subjectivism

In an argument of this sort, a subjective state--the mere fact that we have a belief or desire--is used as evidence for the truth of a proposition.

We can see what's wrong with this argument by identifying the implicit premise. To make this argument stronger, one would have to accept the premise that whatever I believe or want to be true is true. That is, subjectivism implicitly assumes that we are infallible. And of course we aren't.

Subjectivism is not only a way of adopting conclusions on subjective grounds, but also--and probably more often--a way of evading conclusions by refusing to believe in them. Some people have perfected the skill of simply not seeing what they don't want to see, and most of us indulge in this habit occasionally. If the habit were put into words, it would take the form, "I don't want to accept p; therefore, p isn't true." That's subjectivism.

The point is, as I have tried to explain many times: the set of comparable thin air hypotheses, what could and could not exist and whatnot, is infinite. To decide which one of those is worth delving into, it helps if there is at least a tiny bit of empirical substance (e. g. unexpected results in an experiment), to limit the risk of totally wasting your own time and here particularly that of others.

You have failed to deliver on that request up to this moment and that's why you are confronted with so much opposition. It is wasting people's time, but still they aren't willing to let your rhetorical hanky-panky raise the impression that the HA community was ignorant.

That's why I asked for a particular case. If there was one, the discussion could be more fruitful.

But lest anyone get "the impression that the HA community was ignorant" (your words, not mine), here is its opportunity to shine.  Do you have any scientific basis on which to say that the possibility in question--that stimuli that cannot be discriminated from one another could have relevantly different causal influences on perception--cannot obtain?

If not, I fail to see any "opposition" of substance, or any actual disagreement on your part with anything I've said.