Hacker News Reader

Comment by darkwater | Hacker News Reader

Same here. I have a (I think) very good ear in silent environments,for example I can hear a very faint sound at night, but I always struggled following conversations in music clubs or bar with high music volumes. I always end up nodding and saying "yeah yeah" even if I have no remote idea of what the other person is saying.

Edit: but OTOH I see people having actual conversations in those same environments, so I guess it doesn't affect everyone in the same way, and it's not either something fully related to how my eardrums are capable of working...

View on HN

My experience is exactly the same. I doubt everyone is simply pretending they have any idea what everyone else is saying, so it must be something wrong with me.

I’ve had my hearing tested. It’s within normal ranges across all frequencies tested. I have to assume it’s some kind of discrimination or processing difficulty in my brain.

I’ve noticed the same effect can be triggered even in a white environment by only two or three people trying to talk to me at the same time. I can’t understand anything any of them are saying and can’t listen to just one.

I'm the same, and no, others are not pretending. It makes sense that our increased ability to recognize non-speech sounds may come at a cost of reduced ability to recognize speech.

I also have a problem with "background noise" and being unable to understand what people are saying in noisy environments.

Most people definitely do not have it as badly as I do, or they'd never go to a noisy bar and try to talk. It's simply impossible for me to do anything but pay full attention to the person talking, and even then I often have to guess many of the words.

I even went and got my hearing checked (and my wife did at the same time), but the clerk assured me that we don't definitely have hearing problems and joked that we needed marriage counseling instead. :/ It's funny now, but I was a little pissed at the time.

Anyhow, my point is that some of us do indeed "hear" worse in noisy environments, even if our ears are amazing when it's quiet.

Interesting, I'm the exact same, but so far hadn't come across anyone else with this issue.

I think the two aspects might be related. Possibly the average brain is more finetuned to recognize speech specifically, which comes at the cost of recognizing other sounds, but improves speech recognition. Ours are less finetuned, with the opposite effect.

These have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments but in case it's helpful:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_auditory_attention

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect

Having worked (and frequented) loud bars and clubs for decades no one can hear anyone and just nods along.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com