Do Binaural Beats Really Affect Brainwaves?

Post by itistoday2 » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 11:24 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #10

itistoday2 wrote: post #5

Um, brainwaves != subjective cognitive effects. Even plain old, ordinary, non-binaural music has significant, meaningful cognitive effects (and is often used in gyms and therapy for that purpose). Most know from first-hand experience that sound can affect the brain (and body) in significant ways. Sound affects neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. If it didn't, we probably wouldn't have ears. The purpose of ear…

I think the "binaural beat" literature is focused on the question of whether such beats can affect people without conscious auditory processing —i.e., whether the particular firing pattern the beats create is an effective side-channel attack on the synaptic substrate.

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 11:35 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #10

itistoday2 wrote: post #5

Um, brainwaves != subjective cognitive effects. Even plain old, ordinary, non-binaural music has significant, meaningful cognitive effects (and is often used in gyms and therapy for that purpose). Most know from first-hand experience that sound can affect the brain (and body) in significant ways. Sound affects neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. If it didn't, we probably wouldn't have ears. The purpose of ear…

I think the "binaural beat" literature is focused on the question of whether such beats can affect people without conscious auditory processing —i.e., whether the particular firing pattern the beats create is an effective side-channel attack on the synaptic substrate.

Post by Zelphyr » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 11:37 PM UTC

JeremyMorgan wrote: post #12

I use them, got a nice little generator for iPhone that I use almost every day for focus, and relaxing before bed. Could be placebo, could be white noise but either way it works for me.

Post by abandonliberty » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 12:01 AM UTC

yathern wrote: post #16

leeoniya wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also follows from [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

I think that 'law' is better applied when the headline is trying to catch attention by making an aggressive claim, but wants to not be straight up lying. Here it's genuinely taking a skeptical point of view on binaural beats. For example 'Could this new device give you thirty more years of life?' (no) versus 'Does Elon Musk have intentions of leaving Tesla soon?' (no) (or yes, I don't really know)

Post by abandonliberty » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 12:04 AM UTC

rosser wrote: post #8

JohnTHaller wrote: post #2

TL;DR: No, they do not.

I wouldn't be too eager to draw a definitive conclusion from N=2 .