On 15/08/13 00:43, Rob Gaddi wrote:> On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 17:24:54 -0500 > Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.really> wrote: > >> Like a good percentage of human males, I'm partially color blind to green >> and red. In my case, it's enough that I can't tell the difference >> between a green or a red LED -- so a piece of equipment that depends on >> the operator being able to see the color of a bi-color LED is totally >> useless to me. >> >> Needless to say, this is irritating. >> >> Does anyone on the group know how many people are really, truly tone >> deaf? I don't just mean unable to hear when they're playing out of tune, >> but people who are unable to tell the difference between a "beep" and a >> "boop" when it's coming out of a piece of electronic equipment? >> >> I'm thinking of communicating status via a beeper, and for obvious >> reasons I don't want to do the same "bicolor LED" crap to someone, only >> with sound. >> >> -- >> >> Tim Wescott >> Wescott Design Services >> http://www.wescottdesign.com >> > > I can't imagine how that could be the case for anyone that wasn't > completely deaf. Not being able to tell an A from a C is one thing, > but it seems like if you couldn't resolve octave differences you > wouldn't be able to understand English, let alone a tonal language like > Mandarin.There is usually no problem with tone deaf people and tonal languages - first, because tone deafness is less common among such speakers, secondly because the jumps in pitch are quite large, and thirdly because there are all sorts of other auditory queues as well as just the pitch.> > Ears are just simpler hardware. >Ears are incredibly complex hardware - they are nothing like microphones. In many ways, they are much more complex than eyes, which deliver a relatively "raw" image from the retina (the visual processing systems in the brain are seriously complex, of course). You have more nerves going from the brain to the ears in order to train and "program" your ears in your first couple of years of life, than you have nerves coming from the ears to the brain. Tone deafness, however, is a defect in the brain rather than in the ears. It affects something like 5-10% of westerners, depending on how it is classified.
Tone Deafness
Started by ●August 14, 2013
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 15/08/13 00:58, Tim Wescott wrote:> On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:14:25 -0700, John Larkin wrote: > >> On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 17:24:54 -0500, Tim Wescott >> <tim@seemywebsite.really> wrote: >> >>> Like a good percentage of human males, I'm partially color blind to >>> green and red. In my case, it's enough that I can't tell the difference >>> between a green or a red LED -- so a piece of equipment that depends on >>> the operator being able to see the color of a bi-color LED is totally >>> useless to me. >>> >>> Needless to say, this is irritating. >>> >>> Does anyone on the group know how many people are really, truly tone >>> deaf? I don't just mean unable to hear when they're playing out of >>> tune, >>> but people who are unable to tell the difference between a "beep" and a >>> "boop" when it's coming out of a piece of electronic equipment? >>> >>> I'm thinking of communicating status via a beeper, and for obvious >>> reasons I don't want to do the same "bicolor LED" crap to someone, only >>> with sound. >> >> I hate those piezo beepers. They are annoying, and hard to localize. >> >> If you use a small speaker, you can synthesize bell sounds, chirps, >> patterns, structured stuff that sounds nicer and is easier for everyone >> to distinguish. Make a cheerful sound for good things, a raunchy one for >> errors, modulate amplitude if it might mean something. > > It's an add-on to an existing product, so I don't get much choice in > annunciators.How are you going to "announce" what the sounds emitted from the annunciator means? If people hear a noise, will they actually do "the appropriate thing" (whatever that might be)?
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 15/08/13 03:34, Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:> On 8/14/2013 5:24 PM, Tim Wescott wrote: >> Like a good percentage of human males, I'm partially color blind to green >> and red. In my case, it's enough that I can't tell the difference >> between a green or a red LED > > That is not too bad. Many people can't tell left from right.When swapping to driving on the wrong side of the road on holiday, to our surprise both I and my wife confused "go left" and "go right" in the same way. Problem was removed by saying "go your way" and go my way"
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:> When swapping to driving on the wrong side of the roadyou were driving in England then :) Bye Jack -- Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 15:43:41 -0700, Rob Gaddi wrote:> On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 17:24:54 -0500 > Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.really> wrote: > >> Like a good percentage of human males, I'm partially color blind to >> green and red. In my case, it's enough that I can't tell the >> difference between a green or a red LED -- so a piece of equipment that >> depends on the operator being able to see the color of a bi-color LED >> is totally useless to me. >> >> Needless to say, this is irritating. >> >> Does anyone on the group know how many people are really, truly tone >> deaf? I don't just mean unable to hear when they're playing out of >> tune, but people who are unable to tell the difference between a "beep" >> and a "boop" when it's coming out of a piece of electronic equipment? >> >> I'm thinking of communicating status via a beeper, and for obvious >> reasons I don't want to do the same "bicolor LED" crap to someone, only >> with sound. >> >> -- >> >> Tim Wescott >> Wescott Design Services >> http://www.wescottdesign.com >> >> > I can't imagine how that could be the case for anyone that wasn't > completely deaf. Not being able to tell an A from a C is one thing, but > it seems like if you couldn't resolve octave differences you wouldn't be > able to understand English, let alone a tonal language like Mandarin. > > Ears are just simpler hardware.You may be on to something there. Though my mom died in my early twenties, i knew that she couldn't sing; total monotone. but i'll bet she could hear the differences as she loved music and dancing. It was kind of a family thing that they both loved "Donkey Serenade" from some comic opera, though it wasn't until many years/tears later before my dad died a couple of decades later that i understood. There is a flaw in her voice. ?-)
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 14/08/13 23:43, Rob Gaddi wrote:> Ears are just simpler hardware.Which clearly indicates you have no understanding of the ear-brain combination. (Except for one example of such, of course).
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 15/08/13 09:48, Jack wrote:> Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: > >> When swapping to driving on the wrong side of the road > > you were driving in England then :)About 1/3 of the world's population drives on the correct side, in about 1/3 of the world's countries, if this is top be believed: <http://www.worldstandards.eu/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm#leftdriving> Of course in some of those countries, particularly large countries, there is only a "marked bias" towards driving on the left :) Don't know how it works at the border between Hong Kong and China :)
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 14/08/2013 23:43, Rob Gaddi wrote:> On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 17:24:54 -0500 > Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.really> wrote: > >> Like a good percentage of human males, I'm partially color blind to green >> and red. In my case, it's enough that I can't tell the difference >> between a green or a red LED -- so a piece of equipment that depends on >> the operator being able to see the color of a bi-color LED is totally >> useless to me. >> >> Needless to say, this is irritating. >> >> Does anyone on the group know how many people are really, truly tone >> deaf? I don't just mean unable to hear when they're playing out of tune, >> but people who are unable to tell the difference between a "beep" and a >> "boop" when it's coming out of a piece of electronic equipment? >> >> I'm thinking of communicating status via a beeper, and for obvious >> reasons I don't want to do the same "bicolor LED" crap to someone, only >> with sound. >> >> -- >> >> Tim Wescott >> Wescott Design Services >> http://www.wescottdesign.com >> > > I can't imagine how that could be the case for anyone that wasn't > completely deaf. Not being able to tell an A from a C is one thing, > but it seems like if you couldn't resolve octave differences you > wouldn't be able to understand English, let alone a tonal language like > Mandarin.You would be in trouble with Mandarin or any tonal language but I know someone who cannot reliably answer "up, down or same" to two pure tone notes played in succession (although this is incredibly rare). Choosing two notes an octave apart is probably not a good idea. They would be hard for some perhaps many people to distinguish. I am not sure what the best combination or separation would be but a pure frequency sine wave for happy and a dischordant squarewave chord for unhappy ought to be distinguishable even by someone who is tone deaf.> > Ears are just simpler hardware.If you count realtime Fourier analysis with additional temporal resolution on transients beyond what classical signal processing permits then yes they are "simple" hardware. In practice it is a lot harder than that and the ear is easily fooled by auditory illusions like the forever rising tone in shades of Escher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone -- Regards, Martin Brown
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Tim Wescott wrote:> Like a good percentage of human males, I'm partially color blind to > green and red. In my case, it's enough that I can't tell the > difference between a green or a red LED -- so a piece of equipment > that depends on the operator being able to see the color of a > bi-color LED is totally useless to me. > > Needless to say, this is irritating. > > Does anyone on the group know how many people are really, truly tone > deaf? I don't just mean unable to hear when they're playing out of > tune, but people who are unable to tell the difference between a > "beep" and a "boop" when it's coming out of a piece of electronic > equipment? > > I'm thinking of communicating status via a beeper, and for obvious > reasons I don't want to do the same "bicolor LED" crap to someone, > only with sound.Everyone can tell beep-beep from beep. My car is programmed to wait until it is going pretty fast, and then sound GONG-GONG-GONG (yeah, 3 times and loud) to make the driver jump. "Oh, no. Something serious." The info display gives details. "Washer fluid low." -- Reply in group, but if emailing remove the last word.
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
In article <671Pt.15783$Yc.9018@fx26.am4>, spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk says...> > On 15/08/13 09:48, Jack wrote: > > Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: > > > >> When swapping to driving on the wrong side of the road > > > > you were driving in England then :) > > About 1/3 of the world's population drives on the > correct side, in about 1/3 of the world's countries, > if this is top be believed: > <http://www.worldstandards.eu/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm#leftdriving> > > Of course in some of those countries, particularly > large countries, there is only a "marked bias" towards > driving on the left :)In some of those places it is more in the towns/cities as anywhere else you are lucky to find what western countries call roads.. -- Paul Carpenter | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk <http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/> PC Services <http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/pi/> Raspberry Pi Add-ons <http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/> Timing Diagram Font <http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/> GNU H8 - compiler & Renesas H8/H8S/H8 Tiny <http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate