[coli]

A new study shows that the skin help us hear by 'feeling' sounds.​

 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skin-hearing-airflow-puff-sound-perception/

 

[asilker]

Interesting, if not particularly surprising. I'm sure this has an effect on music playback with speakers, but it has a profound effect on daily communication

 

[Coolzo]

Yes, when I play drum 'n' bass on my large system, I can feel the skin on my face stretch and compress along with various low sub notes, and at normal listening volumes. I also find that although I cannot rightly "hear" a whole lot above 10k, I can sense a slight 'tinlge' around my ears up to right about 16k, again changing slightly with frequency.

 

[icebear]

The "study" is not new, it's from 2009

.
You see with your eyes, you feel with your skin and you hear with your ears. Ask a 4th grader...

Obviously there is some overlap between feeling the pressure of certain frequencies if the SPL is high enough.
That has nothing to do with hearing. You can't "understand the message" of the sound with your skin. That simply is BS.
Hearing with your eyes? ... lip sync ability is based on seeing, not hearing.
 
How come that unfortunate people born without hearing or people who lost their hearing due to an accident or illness, can't just use their skin to listen ?

What an unscientific hogwash.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

This is the reason why people think headphones don't have enough bass despite what a mannequin head with a mic will show vs the same mic on a chair measuring their preferred speakers. They don't realize the main difference is getting that kick in the chest is what the headphone can't do, but otherwise if it's just about the sound that reaches the eardrums, there are a lot less difference apart from being totally different drivers (and so the curve isn't exactly identical). 

 

[gregorio]

  [1] You see with your eyes, you feel with your skin and you hear with your ears. Ask a 4th grader...

[2] Obviously there is some overlap between feeling the pressure of certain frequencies if the SPL is high enough.
That has nothing to do with hearing. You can't "understand the message" of the sound with your skin. That simply is BS.
[3] Hearing with your eyes? ... lip sync ability is based on seeing, not hearing.
 
[4] How come that unfortunate people born without hearing or people who lost their hearing due to an accident or illness, can't just use their skin to listen ?

 
1. Hopefully we're a little beyond 4th graders here?
2. I would say that there's not "some" overlap but a huge overlap, an overlap which is so big that it can be total ...
3. Following on from #3, it's not just lip sync. The McGurk Effect proves that our hearing can be totally overridden by our eyes and there are other effects/observations which demonstrate that all the senses are interlinked to such a significant degree that given certain circumstances each of them can be totally overridden.
4. This is where your argument really falls down because there are some who can! There are a number of high achieving "deaf" musicians who have learned to do exactly this, Evelyn Glennie being probably the most famous example. Definitely worth some research if you've never heard of her.
 
It's my hypothesis that hearing and touch are not separate senses, that hearing is in effect just a highly specialised form of touch. In areas where our hearing becomes less sensitive, our sense of touch takes over. Rumbles are low frequency signals, where our hearing is far less sensitive and we therefore often tend to describe feeling a rumble rather than hearing a rumble. It's my contention that we all sense sound through our sense of touch but that within the sensitive areas of our hearing, our perception of sound is commonly dominated by our sense of hearing and we're generally not consciously aware of hearing with our sense of touch. Reduce the sense of hearing by enough, as with the hearing impaired for example, and the sense of touch comes much more to the fore, even to the point that it can be trained to similar levels as unimpaired musicians! The afore mentioned Evelyn Glennie describes training her "hearing" by placing her hands on the classroom wall while her music teacher played different notes. Over the course of many months she learned to differentiate even between semi-tones and eventually developed perfect pitch from where on her body she "feels" the notes. In some respects Evelyn has better "hearing" than non-hearing impaired people, she just doesn't rely on her ears for her perception of hearing!
 
If my hypothesis is correct, it would provide an additional reason for why listening on headphones is for some/many not entirely satisfactory.
 
G

 

[RRod]

Note of course that Dame Glennie is a percussionist, and thus isn't often called upon to play high-pitched instruments where intonation is an issue. When you read her essays about how she plays and think about the nature of what she plays, you can see how she could perform at the international level as a percussionist. Could she have been a world-class violinist? I'm not so sure.
 
Agree totally on the speaker thing, though. Having had a bit more occasion to use my living room speakers lately, I'm almost starting to get annoyed by headphones.

 

[gregorio]

  [1] Note of course that Dame Glennie is a percussionist, and thus isn't often called upon to play high-pitched instruments where intonation is an issue.
[2] Could she have been a world-class violinist? I'm not so sure.

 
1. Agreed, however, she can identify note pitch throughout the range, not just in the lower octaves. A relatively small percentage of the population (with normal hearing) have perfect pitch or such trained "hearing".
 
2. No idea, however, I did meet a few times a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra who was also profoundly deaf from a quite young age. Can't remember her name unfortunately, it was about 15-20 years ago.
 
G

 

[HAMS]

Lol do you take this idiot scientist wannabe nonsense seriously? Some random puff on ankle can make you hear 'ba'clearly and not mistake it for 'pa'? LMAO

 

[HAMS]

1. Hopefully we're a little beyond 4th graders here?
2. I would say that there's not "some" overlap but a huge overlap, an overlap which is so big that it can be total ...
3. Following on from #3, it's not just lip sync. The McGurk Effect proves that our hearing can be totally overridden by our eyes and there are other effects/observations which demonstrate that all the senses are interlinked to such a significant degree that given certain circumstances each of them can be totally overridden.
4. This is where your argument really falls down because there are some who can! There are a number of high achieving "deaf" musicians who have learned to do exactly this, Evelyn Glennie being probably the most famous example. Definitely worth some research if you've never heard of her.

It's my hypothesis that hearing and touch are not separate senses, that hearing is in effect just a highly specialised form of touch. In areas where our hearing becomes less sensitive, our sense of touch takes over. Rumbles are low frequency signals, where our hearing is far less sensitive and we therefore often tend to describe feeling a rumble rather than hearing a rumble. It's my contention that we all sense sound through our sense of touch but that within the sensitive areas of our hearing, our perception of sound is commonly dominated by our sense of hearing and we're generally not consciously aware of hearing with our sense of touch. Reduce the sense of hearing by enough, as with the hearing impaired for example, and the sense of touch comes much more to the fore, even to the point that it can be trained to similar levels as unimpaired musicians! The afore mentioned Evelyn Glennie describes training her "hearing" by placing her hands on the classroom wall while her music teacher played different notes. Over the course of many months she learned to differentiate even between semi-tones and eventually developed perfect pitch from where on her body she "feels" the notes. In some respects Evelyn has better "hearing" than non-hearing impaired people, she just doesn't rely on her ears for her perception of hearing!

If my hypothesis is correct, it would provide an additional reason for why listening on headphones is for some/many not entirely satisfactory.

G

Please give solid science proof that people can hear notes from vibrations on their skins. Not just because some famous questionably 'deaf' musician said so. Music enjoyement can be affected from all sensor in our body. Music sound much better with good visual, when your body feels good/no pain, when you taste tasty food(maybe), when you can feel the rumble of bass. That's all the sensation that has no thing to do directly with the music. And what we know is we can only differentiate music notes with ear.

 

[gregorio]

Please give solid science proof that people can hear notes from vibrations on their skins. Not just because some famous questionably 'deaf' musician said so. Music enjoyement can be affected from all sensor in our body. Music sound much better with good visual, when your body feels good/no pain, when you taste tasty food(maybe), when you can feel the rumble of bass. That's all the sensation that has no thing to do directly with the music. And what we know is we can only differentiate music notes with ear.

 
Talk about hypocrisy! Without any evidence at all you make an absolute statement like "what we know is we can only ..." and also without a shred of evidence question the integrity of someone's medically diagnosed condition but any statements contrary to your completely unsupported opinion requires "solid science proof"?! I personally have witnessed the proof that Ms. Glennie is profoundly deaf. And, after being shown, I have experienced for myself one of the methods Ms. Glennie uses to tune an instrument ("differential music notes") with a high degree of accuracy, an experiment with surprisingly less subtle results than one would assume, an experiment which is easily repeatable and which I witnessed others experience (and be just a surprised). Furthermore, as I mentioned, it's not just one musician, I've met another (unrelated) profoundly deaf highly accomplished professional musician. Obviously there is only my word for all this and even if I could corroborate my word with testimonials from others, it would still only constitute anecdotal evidence rather than "solid scientific proof". So, anecdotal evidence, partially supported by the article linked by the OP, is all I'm offering, not solid scientific proof but even scientifically weak anecdotal evidence is still a whole lot more evidence than you've supplied!
 
G

 

[icebear]

You met this uniquely talented deaf musician who was able to tune instruments. So she was able to perceive vibrations with her touch senses, great.
Was she able to understand spoken word when the speaker was behind her or hidden from direct view?
If she was able to do that, then she was able to listen with her skin, if she was not able of this voice recognition w/o help of lip reading, then she can not listen with her skin.
Even if there is one individual with highly developed senses, 95%+ of the unfortunate population who are deaf, has a real problem and they can not listen with their skin.
I also can't give any scientific proof or source for this, I just have a little bit of common sense

.
 
The ear is an amazingly capable organ that is amplifying sound waves of a specific frequency range via hydro mechanics and lever principle and translating them into electrical impulses that the brain interprets as a particular sound information. This feat does not happen in the same manner just anywhere on the skin. That is BS.

 

[HAMS]

Talk about hypocrisy! Without any evidence at all you make an absolute statement like "what we know is we can only ..." and also without a shred of evidence question the integrity of someone's medically diagnosed condition but any statements contrary to your completely unsupported opinion requires "solid science proof"?! I personally have witnessed the proof that Ms. Glennie is profoundly deaf. And, after being shown, I have experienced for myself one of the methods Ms. Glennie uses to tune an instrument ("differential music notes") with a high degree of accuracy, an experiment with surprisingly less subtle results than one would assume, an experiment which is easily repeatable and which I witnessed others experience (and be just a surprised). Furthermore, as I mentioned, it's not just one musician, I've met another (unrelated) profoundly deaf highly accomplished professional musician. Obviously there is only my word for all this and even if I could corroborate my word with testimonials from others, it would still only constitute anecdotal evidence rather than "solid scientific proof". So, anecdotal evidence, partially supported by the article linked by the OP, is all I'm offering, not solid scientific proof but even scientifically weak anecdotal evidence is still a whole lot more evidence than you've supplied!

G

I'm not the one that need to prove a point. I only question on the article's flawed method to proof scientifically and your "weak anecdotal evidence" that's not even scientific. People lie, thought i can't know most of time if people lie I know a lot people that lie and just follow any idea that trend now just to sell their book, sell products, promote their blog or you tube channel.

 

[gregorio]

  [1] You met this uniquely talented deaf musician who was able to tune instruments. [2] So she was able to perceive vibrations with her touch senses, great.
[3] Was she able to understand spoken word when the speaker was behind her or hidden from direct view? If she was able to do that, then she was able to listen with her skin, if she was not able of this voice recognition w/o help of lip reading, then she can not listen with her skin.
[4] Even if there is one individual with highly developed senses, 95%+ of the unfortunate population who are deaf, has a real problem and they can not listen with their skin.
[5] I just have a little bit of common sense

.
 
[6] The ear is an amazingly capable organ that is amplifying sound waves of a specific frequency range via hydro mechanics and lever principle and translating them into electrical impulses that the brain interprets as a particular sound information. This feat does not happen in the same manner just anywhere on the skin. That is BS.

 
1. No, she was not "uniquely" talented in this regard, as I've mentioned several times!
2. She was able to sense acoustic sound waves (vibrations) with her touch sense. Isn't being able to sense acoustic sound waves the definition of hearing?
3. No. Depending on the SNR and how loudly the speaker was speaking, she could "hear" that someone was speaking but not understand what they were saying without lip-reading. I never stated that hearing via the skin gives identical results to hearing via the ears, that it is equally as sensitive in all ways. I stated that similar levels of musical training has been demonstrated to be achievable hearing via the skin, not that it can replicate perfect hearing.
4. I don't know what percentage of the deaf population could be trained to hear with their skin or to what level of acuity. I would think that few could be trained to the level of acuity needed to understand normal conversational speech, however this is a pure guess/assumption and it might be possible. Regardless though, the level acuity is irrelevant as any acuity is still "hearing", the level of acuity only defines how potentially good or bad someone's hearing is, not whether or not it is hearing!
5. Apparently not! Given certain conditions, it's accepted that we can sense acoustic sound waves with organs other than our ears. Hence, as just one example, why the LFE channel exists in film sound. Without any solid evidence to the contrary, common sense would therefore dictate that it *may* be possible to sense acoustic sound waves with organs other than the ears in other conditions.
6. Agreed! Not sure why you're directing that at me though? I never stated, implied or intended to imply that feat happens in the same manner anywhere on the skin. I merely stated it has been demonstrated that it is possible to sense acoustic sound waves with the skin to a level of acuity sufficient be a top class professional musician.
 

I'm not the one that need to prove a point. ... People lie, ...

 
People do lie, though not all the time and without exception. For this reason, if you are going to call or imply someone is lying then there is a moral (and in many countries, a legal) requirement to have some reasonably solid supporting evidence, you have presented none at all!
 

I only question on the article's flawed method to proof scientifically and your "weak anecdotal evidence" that's not even scientific.

 
There is no scientific proof, either that we can or that we can't perceive sound via the skin. Neither me nor the article are offering any scientific proof, merely some evidence to support the hypothesis that we can. I don't think you know what "scientific" means because formulating a hypothesis (supported even by relatively weak evidence) is a fundamental tenet of the scientific method! It may soon become a working hypothesis and then later still, with even more and more solid evidence, it may become a scientific theory but ultimately there may never be any scientific proof, only a consensus of opinion based on a preponderance of evidence, it would still be absolutely "scientific" though!!
 
G

 

[icebear]

   
.... 6. Agreed! Not sure why you're directing that at me though? I never stated, implied or intended to imply that feat happens in the same manner anywhere on the skin. I merely stated it has been demonstrated that it is possible to sense acoustic sound waves with the skin to a level of acuity sufficient be a top class professional musician....
G

Because you are clearly the most vigorous defender in this case

Have fun, I'm out.