Jan Panteltje wrote:> > I dunno, but I do remember a collegue of mine confessing he was color blind. > He was the engineer responsible for running a color TV studio... > I have wondered many times how he got away with that..Vectorscope. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Tone Deafness
Started by ●August 14, 2013
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:14:25 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:>> ...snip... > I'm not tone deaf (my hearing is great, mechanically) but I don't like > music and I have a very hard time understanding accents. It's a > signal-processing thing. > >Good hearing? Play an instrument? Perhaps, you don't like music, only because its 'reproduction' is so poor. However, the origin of 'not understanding accents' is not so clear. I know no one asked, but for me, I CAN'T understand the words in the lyrics. I can be listening to the raunchiest song and not even know. But, as everyone probably knows music is processed in a different brain location than speech, so the dichotomy can be explained.
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 07:53:45 -0700, RobertMacy <robert.a.macy@gmail.com> wrote:>On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:14:25 -0700, John Larkin ><jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote: > >>> ...snip... >> I'm not tone deaf (my hearing is great, mechanically) but I don't like >> music and I have a very hard time understanding accents. It's a >> signal-processing thing. >> >> > >Good hearing? Play an instrument? Perhaps, you don't like music, only >because its 'reproduction' is so poor.No, it mostly annoys me.> >However, the origin of 'not understanding accents' is not so clear.They both have to do with the brain processing of sounds. My wife is a speech pathologist and explained it to me. It's a variation of autism/asperger, where one part of the brain is over-developed (visual/kinetic for me) and another part is underfunded. But she can't change the battery in a flashlight. -- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
In article <WPGdneG5cYUrnpHPnZ2dnUVZ5ugAAAAA@giganews.com>, 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.If you want to cover _everyone_, you have to get multi-modal. The simple solution to your status problem for the non-blind (colorblind fine) is, of course, two LEDS NOT in the same package. If you were contemplating a third state corresponding to amber in a bicolor, that can be a third LED or just both LEDs on at once, depending how counter-intuitive both on at once would be. Unless the device is actually bursting into flames, or will in a few seconds, "beeps" and "boops" make _me_ want to use a hammer on it until it shuts the "<bleep>" up. _Irritating_ is in the eye or ear of the beholder/behearer. They are also hard as heck to write documentation for - without a reference sound, one man's text-written "beep" is another fellow's text-written "boop." So you need some way to disambiguate the audio/written and audible. If your target market is geeks who understand R2D2 without a translator, you're all set. If I were blind, I'd no doubt feel rather differently. But deaf folks would not be fond of beeps and boops, either. -- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 15/08/2013 17:05, Ecnerwal wrote:> In article <WPGdneG5cYUrnpHPnZ2dnUVZ5ugAAAAA@giganews.com>, > 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. > > If you want to cover _everyone_, you have to get multi-modal. > > The simple solution to your status problem for the non-blind (colorblind > fine) is, of course, two LEDS NOT in the same package. If you were > contemplating a third state corresponding to amber in a bicolor, that > can be a third LED or just both LEDs on at once, depending how > counter-intuitive both on at once would be. > > Unless the device is actually bursting into flames, or will in a few > seconds, "beeps" and "boops" make _me_ want to use a hammer on it until > it shuts the "<bleep>" up. _Irritating_ is in the eye or ear of the > beholder/behearer. They are also hard as heck to write documentation for > - without a reference sound, one man's text-written "beep" is another > fellow's text-written "boop." So you need some way to disambiguate the > audio/written and audible. If your target market is geeks who understand > R2D2 without a translator, you're all set. > > If I were blind, I'd no doubt feel rather differently. But deaf folks > would not be fond of beeps and boops, either.I don't known about it in the US but over here supermarket scanners make some really annoying beeps and buzzes when scanning in items but it is as nothing to the dreaded high pitched mechanical voice which mutters the curious phrase "unexpected item in the bagging area". Also be careful how annoying you make the sound - aircraft cockpit sounders have it about right to grab attention but not paralyse the crew into inaction or worse still forcing them to look up how to disable the wretched alarm so that they can hear themselves think. The latter was apparently the fate of the unfortunate Three Mile Island operators who were faced with multiple failure alarms and klaxons going off left right and centre. They were well aware they had big trouble and didn't need to spend all that extra time consulting manuals and fighting the instrumentation to get the alarm sounders cancelled. -- Regards, Martin Brown
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
On 15/08/13 17:29, Martin Brown wrote:> Also be careful how annoying you make the sound - aircraft cockpit sounders have it about right to grab attention but not paralyse the crew into inaction or worse still forcing them to look up how to > disable the wretched alarm so that they can hear themselves think.It is very easy to ignore the audible warnings: - my daughter does it all the time - it is a standard story to hear of gliders screeching on the downwind leg, so that everybody except the pilot realises they have forgotten to lower the undercarriage :)> The latter was apparently the fate of the unfortunate Three Mile Island operators who were faced with multiple failure alarms and klaxons going off left right and centre. They were well aware they had > big trouble and didn't need to spend all that extra time consulting manuals and fighting the instrumentation to get the alarm sounders cancelled.My understanding is that the real problem was that there were so many error indications that they couldn't determine the root cause of them all. That's subtly different.
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Hi Martin, On 8/15/2013 4:09 AM, Martin Brown wrote:> 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.Why not just a solid tone vs. a chopped tone? The problem arises when you want to convey more than two states.>> 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.Agreed. Ears / hearing are amazingly complex -- esp given their "mechanical" nature. I've spent a fair bit of time working with "3D" audio displays. It is incredibly frustrating how the math *appears* to work yet fails, miserably, when trying to simulate the placement of an audio source in 3-space. E.g., elevation is amazingly difficult to resolve. Synthesized sound appears to be located *inside* your head. Front-back reversals are common. Yet, a "real person" interacting with sounds in "real space" seldom encounters these same problems! I.e., ITD ILD/IAD/IID, HRTF don't seem to cover the whole problem (in terms of classic signal processing?!)
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Hi Martin, On 8/15/2013 9:29 AM, Martin Brown wrote:> Also be careful how annoying you make the sound - aircraft cockpit > sounders have it about right to grab attention but not paralyse the crew > into inaction or worse still forcing them to look up how to disable the > wretched alarm so that they can hear themselves think.The character of the sound can be changed to suit its intent. E.g., "you have a phone call" can be far less insistent than "the house is on fire". "System operational" more subtle than "Oh, Crap! Something's fried!". I've designed products that played a gentle, unobtrusive little tune after POST as an indication that they were ready to operate and all diagnostics had passed successfully. Yet, would "blow raspberries" if something had failed in the test. People (users) can become accustomed to a pleasant little annunciator (and learn to *miss* it if they fail to hear it as expected). And, similarly, *alarmed* when confronted with some discordant mess! [Trick is making it *subtle* so it doesn't become annoying -- like *all* of the Windows sign-on "melodies"!]> The latter was apparently the fate of the unfortunate Three Mile Island > operators who were faced with multiple failure alarms and klaxons going > off left right and centre. They were well aware they had big trouble and > didn't need to spend all that extra time consulting manuals and fighting > the instrumentation to get the alarm sounders cancelled.Experimenting with "audio displays" (i.e., where you *want* to use audio as the primary communication medium), I've pretty much concluded that a "normal person" can handle three audio channels concurrently -- provided they have different types of content. We're all used to dealing with "background noise". Whether it is chatter of colleagues, guests at a party or background music, etc. On top of this, we can *focus* (consciously!) on a specific audio interchange: a conversation with another party, the sound from a TV program, etc. Finally, we can tolerate *terse* (!) interruptions/annunciators that are *intended* to distract us (even if we would prefer NOT to be distracted). A ringing doorbell/phone, a kid wanting to "go to Tommy's house", an item crashing to the floor, etc. The "interruption" channel tries to "steal our focus" (i.e., become the "foreground channel" that we are actively engaged with). If we accept this altered focus, we relegate the previous foreground/focus channel to another level of "background" where it may disappear in the noise, etc. The problem seems to be when our attention is *tugged* in different directions simultaneously -- or nearly simultaneously. E.g., the phone ringing coincident with a dish falling onto the floor. At these times, background and foreground seem to fall from consideration as we try to sort out everything that is happening "at once". Managing this "interruptions" channel is then the primary design issue. I.e., if you've already signaled a *fire*, it's probably not wise to try to bother the listener with a notification that "the phone is ringing"! (that will just be a distraction and lead to "overload") Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many (any?) hard and fast rules regarding how frequent "events" can enter this channel. And, the ability of a user/listener to actively manage that event space seems to vary over time, activity, age, etc. [I have a friend who can't pick black marbles out of a bag of mixed black and white marbles if you talk to him while he is performing this (mindless?) task! Other folks can't tell you which relative direction an alarm was sounded while doing any sort of task that requires more than the slightest concentration.] <shrug>
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
"Tom Del Rosso" <tomd_u1@verizon.net.invalid> wrote:> >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."better then a similar alert it is so cold the road could be slippery... -- Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------
Reply by ●August 15, 20132013-08-15
Nico Coesel wrote:> > "Tom Del Rosso" <tomd_u1@verizon.net.invalid> wrote: > > > > >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." > > better then a similar alert it is so cold the road could be > slippery...Dirty enough windows could get you killed. Ever had a big truck hit some mud and splatter so much on your windows that you can't see anything? -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.