Research
More from Auditory Neuroscience
Demonstration video from BBC Horizon
Around the web
The taste of sound: “A study conducted by the food company Unilever and the University of Manchester wanted to find out whether background sounds affect the perception of flavor. They found that people rated foods less salty and less sweet as noise levels increased. When noise levels decreased, the perception of those tastes increased. The results indicate that noise has a somewhat masking effect on taste. This is one of the reasons why airplane food doesn’t taste very good. The deafening roar of the engines can make the food taste less sweet and less salty (and possibly less other stuff, too, that these researchers didn’t test for). Loud music may make the environment less pleasant to some people, but it can positively affect sales of alcohol. In a study conducted in two different bars, the researchers found that revelers ordered more drinks and drank their beer faster when the music playing in the background was fast and loud. When the sound track was played at a lower decibel level, drink sales were lower and the pace of drinking was slower. In other words, fast tempos beget fast-moving partiers who also, not incidentally, spend more money on drinks.”
Research: More emotions are evoked when consuming ice cream under excited music and sound conditions
Research: The role of auditory cues in modulating the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips: “The results demonstrate that the perception of both the crispness and staleness was systematically altered by varying the loudness and/or frequency composition of the auditory feedback elicited during the biting action.”
Related: Does the colour of the mug influence the taste of the coffee? And a presentation from one of the authors, Charles Spence
“Most people fundamentally want to have cultural experiences that are mind-expanding and broaden their world… If the corporations that control our culture refuse to deliver that, they will find a way around it and there will be a rebirth. We will have a new counterculture.” - Ted Gioia
“The history of the record business is not a story about rejuvenating cycles of natural death and destined rebirth. It’s a story about old, outmoded tech companies chasing diminishing returns. The path we’re on is a spiral, not a circle, and it’s getting smaller and narrower as we get closer to the end… The base determines the superstructure. The frontier is only ever as wide as our underlying economic system allows it to be… the people who own everything will keep dragging us towards the event horizon regardless of what we want. Any other story we tell ourselves about how this all works is just a coping strategy.” - Jamie Brooks
Podcast: Is pop culture worse than ever?
“Culture is not just a map of the structures and forces that order our society. It’s what people make on top of, in between, in opposition to, and in collaboration with those things. We all have the power to listen more curiously, look more closely, and treat the present with the same sense of generosity that we extend to the golden ages of the past. When you tune in to the creativity that is still pulsing in these disorienting times, you can hear the story that most needs telling: Keep going.” - Spencer Kornhaber
The Nightly: “a music appreciation society disguised as a radio station, specializing in the old, the gloomy, and the obscure”
In case it’s useful: Transfer Spotify playlists to YouTube Music
Apple Music and UMG roll out collections of pop instrumentals — crafted based on audio science — with claims they can help you to better sleep, relaxation and focus
SoundCloud receives some backlash after quietly updating its Terms of Use to say user content could be used to "inform, train, develop or serve" AI systems. Soundcloud insists it “has never used artist content to train AI models.” The case isn’t quite so straightforward
"If we fail to protect the [LLM] training stage, every artist will eventually compete with a system trained on their own work. And no creative economy, no matter how strong, can survive that." - Virginie Berger
In the UK, the House of Lords pushes back against government’s AI plans: tech companies must make clear when copyright-protected content is used
In the US: Ticketmaster will now show the full price of tickets
Listening and watching
Things we’re interested in
“We are all born with a certain package. We are who we are. Where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We are kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people, find out what makes them tick, what they care about. For me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. If it’s a great movie, it lets you understand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class, a different nationality, a different profession, different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. And that, to me, is the most noble thing that good movies can do and it’s a reason to encourage them and to support them and to go to them.” - Roger Ebert
Hidden Music: The Composer’s Guide to Sonification
Great interview with indie game developer Neal Agarwal, creator of Neal.fun: In the age of slop, craft is rebellion
Report: What happens when cinemas are supported to run VR experiences? For some additional context, Meta is laying off employees in Reality Labs
Always reliable: Meta fudged benchmarks to appear as though its new AI model is better than the competition
“We're a few years into the tech industry's AI hype cycle, and it's all been characterized by far more heat than light. The assertions by the people making the AI platforms are as absurd as we've come to expect from shameless Silicon Valley shills.” - Anil Dash
“So you're saying this experimental software launched to an indeterminate amount of people that barely works is going to make OpenAI $13 billion in 2025, and $29 billion in 2026, and later down the line $125 billion in 2029? How?” - Edward Zitron
Antilibrary: “In [Umberto] Eco’s view, a library’s true value lies not in what has been read, but in everything it holds open for future discovery.”
21 observations from people watching: “People who don't pause exist more in their head than their body. The mind is top-down, rigid, quick, enforcing an established view. The mind is waiting for the other person to be done so they can say what’s rattling around inside. The body is slower, needs more time, and then words bubble up organically, one after another, without planning. People who exist more in their body are generally better at connecting emotionally with others.”
A random assortment of human life
Question
What does Soy Sauce sound like?
Closing notes
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Until next week…