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Books Hearing So Strangely
Hearing So Strangely
Why the book “Musical Illusions and Phantom Words” is so thought provoking, especially if you have a hearing loss. By Kathi Mestayer
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At first glance, this book’s title suggests a science fiction novel. Well, it is science, but not fiction. It’s about the amazing things our brains, and our auditory systems, do with sound.
I first heard the author, Diana Deutsch, Ph.D., on a Radiolab podcast about the slippery slope between words and music. Deutsch, a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, is interviewed during the podcast and presents her research in very clear and accessible language.
Intrigued, I bought her book. It is now packed with sticky notes and dog-eared pages, highlights of various colors, and notes in the margins. That’s how I treat my favorite books.
Hear for Yourself
Some of the coolest features of the book are the QR codes and website links that you can use to actually hear and experience the strange audio effects, with Deutsch’s narration. When I listened to the first one, Octave Illusion, I learned that my cell phone did not provide the stereo signal required. So I borrowed a pair of stereo headphones, plugged them into my laptop, and it was perfect!
Perfectly… wrong, which is exactly what Deutsch had prepared me for.
Here’s what happens in Octave Illusion: Identical high and low notes, an octave apart, are delivered to each ear but as opposites. The left ear hears high-low-high-low, the right ear low-high-low-high.
However, when you listen to them, you will hear only the high tones in one ear, and only the low tones in the other ear. Even switching the headphones between ears doesn’t change the effect. Hard to believe, right?
In fact, when Deutsch first experienced the Octave Illusion, she was in her office, using headphones. What she heard was not at all what she expected. She switched her headphones around to the opposite ears—but nothing changed. So she went looking for more data.
“The next thing that occurred to me was that something really peculiar had happened to my hearing,” she writes. “Somewhat alarmed, I grabbed a few people from the corridor to find out whether they, at least, heard the pattern as would have been expected. To my amazement (as well as my relief), most of them experienced the same illusion as I did, and none could guess what was really being played.”
To listen to the Octave Illusion, scan this QR code from page 25 of Deutch’s book. Listen with real stereo audio to hear this correctly.
The Octave Illusion really sparked Deutsch’s curiosity. She writes about possible explanations, touching on psychology, the grouping of similar (e.g., high vs. low) sounds to help locate their source, and other potential factors. There is still more to be discovered to completely understand and explain it, and it’s one of several opportunities for further research that Deutsch identifies.
The spoken phrase “sometimes behave so strangely,” as it appears to be sung.
Phantom Words
The Phantom Words sections of the book may be a bit less surprising to those of us with hearing loss. After all, we hear strange words all the time.
A few weeks ago, my clothes dryer started talking to me, again, this time saying, “I had to smash ’em, I had to smash ’em….” I sent a short recording of it to my sister, who also has a hearing loss, and she heard the same thing.
When I shared this point with Deutsch via email, she expressed an interest: “Now that you mention it, I’m guessing that people with hearing loss should hear a large number of phantom words. I’ll definitely look into this.”
The Phantom Words audio is amazing to listen to. It’s basically just a series of tones, some repeating, some not. Maybe it was partly my hearing loss, but my brain started making words out of those sounds almost immediately, like these:
“...bonk-bonk-bonk, delta-delta-delta, wombat, wombat, cahoot, cahootka, ca ca ca hootka, elvis, elvis, no brain, no brain...”
Deutsch’s students heard a wild variety of words, some accented, depending on their native language. She writes in her book that one student insisted that a German word had been intentionally inserted into the recording, and refused to accept Deutsch’s insistence to the contrary.
To listen to the Phantom Words, scan this QR code from page 107 of Deutch’s book.
Words and Music
Another fascinating topic Deutsch explores is how language and music overlap. After all, pitch, rhythm, emphasis, tone, and other qualities exist in both. In the Radiolab episode, Deutsch talks about how a simple sentence fragment, when repeated, can become musical. Her example is how a recording of her voice, saying “sometimes behaves so strangely,” when heard repeatedly, turned into a tune.
She also discusses her finding that “absolute pitch” (also known as “perfect pitch”) is far more common among people whose first language is “tonal,” such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese.
Surprises Matter
Throughout the book, Deutsch focuses on things that are unexpected, counterintuitive, and puzzling. Here’s why:
“Illusions are often regarded as entertaining anomalies that shed little light on the normal process of perception. Yet I hope to convince you that the contrary is true. Just as the failure of a piece of equipment provides important clues to its successful operation, so perceptual anomalies— particularly illusions—provide us with important information about the system that generally enables us to perceive the world correctly.”
That’s one reason why Deutsch’s book, the recordings, and the Radiolab episode are so intriguing. She presents mysteries, explains parts of them, and then poses the next set of questions for investigation. It’s like seeing science from the inside out.
Staff writer Kathi Mestayer is on the board of the Greater Richmond, Virginia, chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America, a member of the Acoustical Society of America’s Engagement Advisory Board, and a is a technical consultant for the Industry–Consumer Alliance for Accessible Technology (ICAAT). For references, see hhf.org/fall2022-references.
Share your story: Tell us your favorite musical illusions and phantom words at editor@hhf.org.
