71–80 of 106 posts
Headline in 30 years: The long term effect of white noise caused a decline in IQ by 5%. We would do better not to manipulate our brain when we do not know the mechanics.
Voluntary white noise is the bottom of the adverse environmental factors list I'm worried about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of these machines are 'multi-function' machines that play crickets / waterfalls, etc in addition to white noise. That sound is best handled by capturing a snippet and looping it over and over again. The same applies for white noise as well unfortunately. Also it's usually a good idea to buy a little machine for this that uses like 5W vs running your computer all night.
It's crazy they loop, it just takes one transistor in avalanche mode to create white noise. Maybe I should mod my Bose Sleep buds that have ridiculously bad sound quality and short loops (and battery life).
Raspberry Pis have hardware random number generators. I use one to generate smoothed brown noise for sleep. It's blissful.
I've been meaning to get round to solving this problem on phones, making an app that can, without a ridiculously large download, generate really high quality sleep noise. I have some ideas but it's not an easy problem.
From Norman Doidge's book "The Brain That Changes Itself", I learned that: Long term white noise exposure might be associated with hearing loss, especially age-related. The theory was that "nerves that fire together, wire together", too much white noise compared to clear sounds will cause the neural mapping for sounds to gradually become fuzzier, making distinctions between sounds will become harder.
From Norman Doidge's book "The Brain That Changes Itself", I learned that: Long term white noise exposure might be associated with hearing loss, especially age-related. The theory was that "nerves that fire together, wire together", too much white noise compared to clear sounds will cause the neural mapping for sounds to gradually become fuzzier, making distinctions between sounds will become harder.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I code I use white noise, or pink noise, but it's run through a low pass filter to trim off the harsh high ends. I'll also add a slight comb filter then modulate the frequency with a slow LFO (around .05 hz) to give it some movement. Some extra processing then happens like a compressor to even it out a bit and add warmth. It's quite effective, especially for noisy environments.
Do you have a sample you could provide?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This happens to me when listening to a white noise app / machine that has a short loop. You can buy machines that are explicitly non-looping and it's so much better.
Why would they loop? Creating white noise is one line of bash.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"However, a recent study in the JAMA Journal of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery states that white noise’s lack of structure can worsen tinnitus symptoms. The study researchers also suggest that white noise could possibly “accelerate the ageing of the brain” and increase the risk for dementia" Study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-...
Hmmm, I wonder what implications that has for those of us who like to sleep with a fan.
I'm sure that we've evolved to handle things like noisy nights (thunder, rainfall) and living near rivers. You probably don't want to go beyond 50db though.
But to be on the safe side I'm going to turn by fan one notch down (40db -> 30db) to be on the safe side.
From Norman Doidge's book "The Brain That Changes Itself", I learned that: Long term white noise exposure might be associated with hearing loss, especially age-related. The theory was that "nerves that fire together, wire together", too much white noise compared to clear sounds will cause the neural mapping for sounds to gradually become fuzzier, making distinctions between sounds will become harder.
"However, a recent study in the JAMA Journal of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery states that white noise’s lack of structure can worsen tinnitus symptoms. The study researchers also suggest that white noise could possibly “accelerate the ageing of the brain” and increase the risk for dementia" Study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-...
Similar effect at hand?
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/09/transport-no...
From Norman Doidge's book "The Brain That Changes Itself", I learned that: Long term white noise exposure might be associated with hearing loss, especially age-related. The theory was that "nerves that fire together, wire together", too much white noise compared to clear sounds will cause the neural mapping for sounds to gradually become fuzzier, making distinctions between sounds will become harder.
"nerves that fire together, wire together" - ha, that's quite a profound statement. I've been thinking recently how we manage to hear harmonics as one sound without preexisting algorithms in our brain to detect them, and this is probably the answer. Edit. This also means we hear sounds differently. Someone who listens much to classical music hears harmonics really well, but someone who listens to sounds with differen…