“Rorschach Audio” quoted on Apollonius of Perga

Hello Joe,

I’ve very nearly finished reading your Rorschach Audio book (just a couple of pages left to go), and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s strongly written, with a good balance between graceful text and incisive criticism. Please forgive this slightly lengthy comment in what might not be the most appropriate place, but I couldn’t find any other way to contact you.

Earlier today, a small event reminded me of an auditory illusion that I have experienced before, but which I have yet to discover any documented discussion about. I thought you might like to hear of it, and wondered whether it’s something you’ve come across before, as I’ve not read about it in your book or on this site:
At my workplace this afternoon, which became very quiet when the air conditioning was turned off after the plumber fixed the boiler, a colleague asked whether I could also hear a persistent rhythmic noise. I could hear it too, but we couldn’t work out where it was coming from, nor whether it was a small sound of a dripping tap or the louder sound of a dog barking or an electronic bleep coming from outside. It turned out to be the tap dripping into a mug, but the point is that this illusion is equivalent to a visual mis-perception, beautifully recounted in a scene from Father Ted, where it is explained to Father Dougal that “these [cows] are small, but the ones out there are far away.” One notable difference (in my experience) is that in the visual illusion the alternate perceptions are usually only reduced in scale, whereas in the auditory illusion sounds can be interpreted as being completely different things. I would put this down to our capacity to interpret sounds depending on the way in which they are modified over a distance – i.e. by physical barriers, audio reflections/interferences, filtering through air, etc. – with the result that the same sound produces widely differing hypotheses about its source. I have experienced this effect mainly upon waking or going to sleep (situations in which suggestibility is increased, I assume), and have mistaken tiny, close rustles or creaks within my bedroom for loud knocks and bangs coming from outside the house.

Is this something you are familiar with? Would you agree with my explanation of this illusion? Are you able to shed any more light on this phenomenon? (Apologies for the visual metaphor!)

Regards,

Guy

Thanks for the reply, Joe. Good point about the evolution of language and belief systems making it hard to track the phenomenon via today’s concepts/terms (though my view, contrary to the principle of linguistic relativity, is that sensory perception is more primal than language in cognitive development). I’ve finished the book now. Looking forward to reading your future publications.

It’s difficult to understand exactly what is being claimed in linguistic relativity – the subject is vast, its claims come in many different strengths and varieties, and as noted elsewhere “the primary literature is in any case more often polemical than enlightening”. There’s probably an Ig Nobel prize to be had from research into testing the validity of the Sapir-Worf hypothesis in the Klingon language… “Whorf meets Worf: the linguistic relativity of Klingon” :¬)