How the Brain Tunes Out Background Noise

Deepak said:
Maybe your "novelty detector neurons" are malfunctioning. :smile:
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As long as I still have some of those I'm happy! :D

On topic. The brain is a wonderful thing. It's amazing what it does and doesn't do while masking some of those things. I find it especially interesting, and sometimes worrisome, how we often feel very attached to all our "intellectual functions," but "we" are like little creatures living inside this huge processor. An exampole for this is how we don't realize we are spooking ourselves or something like that. Hypochondria is a good example of this. We don't want to be sick and we actively do things to prevent it, yet, the same brain is telling you "you just picked up the nastiest bug I've ever seen!:oops:" One system or two or more acting in different directions?

It's also amazing how much of what you think you see, you actually don't. The brain is very adept at tuning out what is deemed not important and sort of painting that it with a bias or a historical truth, if you will. Then, when something major happens in that region that is being tuned out, all the bells go blaring and sudenly that is all you can see. It's like the icon in a piece of software: "New Update Available!!" The most common example of this is being in a really noisy room at a party and someone saying your name. WOOSH! *Head already turned in the right direction, computed in microseconds from all noises in the room bouncing around on all the walls and ceiling* How did you manage to hear that over the noise? Amazing stuff.

Of course, this is nothing new. Magicians have been making money on what you can see and what you expect to see for millennia. It's still really cool, though, when you start analyzing youself and discover your own automated filters happening all around you.
 
Interesting thoughts wireframe.

So,
CPU = Brain
Motherboard = Skull
Microprocessor = (Grey matter)?
Memory = ? (What kind? Latency?) :mrgreen:

I presume, as per Darwin's theory of Evolution, our brains are still evolving, are they becoming faster and better? And BTW, at what process our "Microprocesser" is manufactured at? Must be in picometers. :smile:
 
speaking of being sick I've had a chest cold for a bit over a week now.
wtf.
Phlegm in my throat....
and my nose.
On topic I don't really tune out backround noise nearly as much as my brother in law does.
Seriously the phone can be ringing and it doesn't distract him from gaming while I'm always aware of the environment when I'm doing anything, except perhaps watching a good movie that sucks me in, like half light did but a simple noise will knock me out of it.
 
arjan de lumens said:
My brain used to have this capability, but it stopped working for me ... about 6 years ago.
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Tell them happy sixth birthday from all of us. :smile:

Or is it 6th wedding anniversary?

:p
 
arjan de lumens said:
Unfortunately neither. More like brain damage, although a CT scan didn't turn up anything.
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Oh, so sorry to make a joke about it. I thought it was a tongue in cheek reference to noisy kids or a nagging wife. Heh.

I've got something like that: tinnitus. Talk about annoying. Not being able to tune out noise that isn't even there. :cry:
 
If you don't mind answering could you tell us how?
You seem like a perfectly normal individual.

arjan de lumens said:
Unfortunately neither. More like brain damage, although a CT scan didn't turn up anything.
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wireframe said:
Oh, so sorry to make a joke about it. I thought it was a tongue in cheek reference to noisy kids or a nagging wife. Heh.

I've got something like that: tinnitus. Talk about annoying. Not being able to tune out noise that isn't even there. :cry:
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I got that too though I find I am more able to ignore it now. Used to drive me nuts.

A dripping tap makes me want to go to town on the cuplrit though.
 
I was thinking about something while reading this and then realized half way through that I had no idea what I just read.
 
ANova said:
I was thinking about something while reading this and then realized half way through that I had no idea what I just read.
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Same thing happens with me often. I think too much, while taking bath, driving, reading, studying etc....I keep thinking something or other. Strange!
 
I must be missing some of these neurons, since my "inputs" are totally overloaded all the time, I can almost never filter anything out. Especially problematic with women, I just can't ignore them, ever.
 
_xxx_ said:
I must be missing some of these neurons, since my "inputs" are totally overloaded all the time, I can almost never filter anything out. Especially problematic with women, I just can't ignore them, ever.
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HOT... Women at work... in meetings. IMPOSSIBLE.
 
sytaylor said:
HOT... Women at work... in meetings. IMPOSSIBLE.
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Anywhere. It's a real problem, I'm not joking. It's some sort of a mental problem, really drives me crazy. Especially if those are women I _don't_ want to or should not have for whatever reasons.
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
If you don't mind answering could you tell us how?
You seem like a perfectly normal individual.
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Your brain will for you at a subconscious level filter out some sounds as important and some as unimportant - if someone shouts your name, it will be flagged as important and you will react, if it is just the TV that is on in the background or a co-worker tying on a keyboard, it will be flagged as unimportant and you won't notice it unless you listen specifically for it. No so with me - everything is flagged as important. At least, that's how I try to explain it. As a result, putting me in a noisy setting will exhaust me within about ... 20 seconds. After that, the constant influx of stuff that I cannot filter out will gradually overwhelm me, essentially tearing any sense of control of my mind away from me and turning my normal thought processes into a garble. Eventually, there start to appear patterns in the garble; at this point, things start to feel a bit like how I have heard people describe bad LSD trips.

However, if I am taken out of the noisy setting and into a reasonably noise-free setting, I revert to a "normal" (exhausted and nervous, but otherwise nothing extraordinary) state of mind within a few minutes, which according to my psychiatrist rules out traditional psychosis/schizophrenia and placing me essentially nowhere as far as usable diagnoses/treatment are concerned.

The first half-year I had this condition was easily the worst months of my life. After that, I have been able to set up a life situation where the amount of random noise that I am exposed to (at work and at home) is held down - I had to do either that or suicide.

It's not that I want you guys to feel sorry for me or anything like that; my current life situation is generally rather tolerable and could in some ways be called successful, so there is no need to pity me these days. It's more just an account of an unusual malady; if I can help anyone with similar problems or help advancing the state of research, I would be happy to do so.
 
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