Subject: Selective numbing (was: Re: Why is high high?) From: Eliot Handelman <eliot(at)GENERATION.NET> Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 13:07:39 -0500Andrew Vermiglio wrote: > Eliot, > Have you actually measured your hearing thresholds before and after exposure > to the "extremely intense very high pitched sounds"? The absence of pain is > a poor indicator of cochlear damage due to loud sounds. Andy, during and after exposure to high-intensity high sounds my frequency response was noticably numbed. My own voice souded different to me afterwards, as though my hearing had been selectively anesthetized, though after a few minutes things returned to normal. I wonder whether anyone here knows of relevant studies involving selected numbing of this sort? My thought is that the numbing effect is a protective adaptation, which fails to come into play with loud bass sounds with a rich spectrum, such as is normally found in rock music, which, I think, does cause hearing loss. I don't go to rock concerts regularly but when I have I've never noticed the special selective numbing effect found in the other music. -- eliot McGill is running a new version of LISTSERV (1.8c on Windows NT). Information is available on the WEB at http://www.mcgill.ca/cc/listserv