Auditory processing

[Chance]

So, it's basically an audio version of this:

I heard noticed the guy repeating the phrase over and over in the conversation, but I couldn't make out what he said. After being told it's "I'm a gorilla", I could hear it clearly.

Generally, I have a hard time sorting out what's being said when two or more people are talking. If I'm trying to watch TV and someone speaks to me, I have to pause the TV so I can direct my attention to them. If I'm trying to listen to one person and someone else starts talking, I have to ask them to repeat what they said, because I couldn't focus on what they were saying with the other person talking.

I got 12 passes and yes I noticed the gorilla right off... Its not like he was hard to spot really but maybe that's why I missed 3 passes??? : )

 

[Progster]

So, this sort of stuff is pretty close to my special interest and also my work (so I'm trying not to out myself here). Apols for the lengthy post. I'm trying to answer questions about APD and hearing loss and explain Richardson's expt. I couldn't resist doing this by outlining how hearing works.

Hearing is a multi-layered process. Your ears detect sound, but also perform some low-level processing. Sounds are filtered into frequency bands and loudness is 'measured' in the ear. You could think of the ear processes as the bottom layer. If you are hearing several sounds at once, they are still all mixed up in the ear.

The ears send nerve signals to the brain (various parts of the brain). The brain does most of the work in hearing and listening. One of the first things the brain does is try to separate out the sounds into different sound sources. This is called streaming, and is the next layer up in the chain. An example is when we listen to someone speaking when there is some traffic noise in the background. We don't usually get mixed up and think the traffic noise is part of the speech. Our brains use a whole bunch of cues in the sound signals to separate the audio signal into a speech stream and a traffic noise stream.

Above the streaming layer are further processes, including those for source identification (so we can recognise and name sounds), those for language processing and those for emotional assessment.

Now, humans have very limited processing capabilities so they need a way to process one thing in their environment at a time. The attention mechanism gives you this. Your attention selects just one stream or sound source for you to consciously process. The dominant theory of attention says that attention works as a competition between a top-down process and a bottom-up process. The top-down process is you consciously choosing what sound source to listen to, like a searchlight picking out objects in a scene. The bottom-up process happens because some sounds catch our attention whether we want them to or not, like a crying baby or a sudden bang. Your attention can switch pretty rapidly from one sound to another, giving you the illusion that you are continuously aware of all sounds around you. (The same thing happens with vision.)

Auditory processing disorder is regarded by most hearing scientists as not very well defined - yet. It seems to be a dysfunction of either the stream-forming process or the attention process. People with APD can have trouble picking sounds out of a background sound, or seem to be more likely to be distracted by sounds.

Hearing loss (deafness, hard of hearing, etc.) is a problem with your ears. If you have a hearing loss then your ears just don't detect such quiet sounds as people with undamaged hearing. We know a lot about what can go wrong here, what causes it, and hearing aids can help restore some of it. We know very much less about problems higher up the processing layers.

Many autism researchers have suggested that attention works differently in autistic people. They usually frame this as a dysfunction - e.g. by examining whether autistic people are worse at screening out irrelevant sounds. Anna Remington has a different idea. She suggests that autistic brains have a greater processing capability. Her two experiments both consisted of a difficult listening task, hard enough so that by the end of it her participants were working at full capacity. Her neurotypical participants got maxed out at a lower level of difficulty than her autistic participants. In the conversation experiment, participants were told to listen carefully to the women talking. They were not told about the gorilla man. Most neurotypical people do not notice the "irrelevant" man talking about a gorilla. Most autistic people do. Remington suggests this is because we have more spare processing capacity. In other situations this might look like us being distracted by irrelevant information. She is suggesting that autistic processing stems from a strength, not a deficit.

Thank you for your post, I was hoping you would respond and shed some light on the issue. So basically there are two conflicting theories as to why autistics process sound differently - interesting. I wonder which one is correct. Or perhaps they are different sides of the same coin.

 

[interaural]

Thank you for your post, I was hoping you would respond and shed some light on the issue. So basically there are two conflicting theories as to why autistics process sound differently - interesting. I wonder which one is correct. Or perhaps they are different sides of the same coin.

Yes, your OP looked like bait I couldn't resist!

I think there's still a lot of work to do on this. There are lots of gaps in our models of how neurotypical people process sound, let alone autistic people. To me it feels like a fairly early stage in a scientific field, where we have an accumulation of partly contradictory data, a few theories, and not enough to tie it all together. I also think it matters what "lens" the research community uses to look at the problem (and this matters more than most researchers would like to admit). So if you have a deficit model, you'll find deficits wherever you look. Hard-science researchers starting to adopt a neurodiversity lens might open up lots of interesting new results and theories.

I'm not sure what practical benefit any of this might end up being for autistic people. Except perhaps to demonstrate in detail that we can be disabled simply by a world which is not organised for autistic perception.

 

[Progster]

Yes, your OP looked like bait I couldn't resist!

I think there's still a lot of work to do on this. There are lots of gaps in our models of how neurotypical people process sound, let alone autistic people. To me it feels like a fairly early stage in a scientific field, where we have an accumulation of partly contradictory data, a few theories, and not enough to tie it all together. I also think it matters what "lens" the research community uses to look at the problem (and this matters more than most researchers would like to admit). So if you have a deficit model, you'll find deficits wherever you look. Hard-science researchers starting to adopt a neurodiversity lens might open up lots of interesting new results and theories.

I'm not sure what practical benefit any of this might end up being for autistic people. Except perhaps to demonstrate in detail that we can be disabled simply by a world which is not organised for autistic perception.

Certainly the more positive 'lens' through which Remmington chooses to approach her research, that it is an ability that autistics have rather than a deficit, is more beneficial to the autistic community.

If there were concrete, scientific evidence that yes, we do process things differently, we do have a different sensory experience, then those around us might take our sensory issues or differences a bit more seriously. That would be of great benefit.

 

[Adora]

I couldn’t make out most But do have issues with filtering out background noise and there was a time I actually started questioning my hearing,I have had on numerous occasions ask people to repeat themselves and i even said to my husband for years that it’s hard for me to filter out background noise but I think he thinks I’m just imagining it.

 

[musicalman]

Really interesting stuff! This sort of correlates with my special interests as well (music technology, sound design etc.) So a really long post from me too.

I always heard things as a kid that nobody else seemed to pick up. As a blind person, people always used to brag about how good my hearing was. Later in life they would correct people and say "he doesn't hear better, he's just more attentive to the sounds he hears because he can't see.."

Here's the kicker though. I am actually not more attentive. And on any given day my hearing, or my attention to the sounds I hear, is probably average, if not below average. Only in specific situations do I really notice that I'm picking up things that really aren't expected.

I tried the party test, and I could not hear the man claiming he was a guerilla at all. I heard something being repeated, but by the time I heard that, I was already filtering, and vaguely trying to focus on the women because that's what I was directed to do. Of course when the man was mentioned explicitly, I think I almost died laughing when I heard the man calmly and nonchalantly declaring he was a guerilla 14 times (I counted twice to be sure). And I still find it amusing. I'll never unhear it now.

If I am an aspie, and I really don't know if I am or not, but if I am one, I don't have a major issue with overloading by sound. Not often anyway. When people are shouting or screaming it does get to me. But most normal sounds I can filter. When I was a child though it was a bigger problem. Unexpected sounds would frighten me. Anything that was loud, or rumbly or whooshy that could move was an instant threat and I would run screaming into my room and hide. Certain intonation patterns in people's voices would scare me because I associated them with being in trouble for things I didn't understand. And I also had more trouble adjusting to loud environments. But all of that has gotten a lot better. I've gotten really good at selectively hearing things. If it isn't catching my immediate focus, I can very easily ignore it. Which unfortunately became a problem in class when my teachers became background noise that my brain could easily just filter.

I do have audio processing issues with music though. If I'm transcribing a song, or trying to compose, I need absolute musical silence. A fan in the background is fine. Having a conversation with certain people who understand I'm concentrating is fine. People talking quietly in the background is fine when I have headphones on. A few beeps from an elevator or a cell phone or a computer is fine once I'm so used to those sounds that I can filter. But where it isn't fine is when I hear very musical sounds that aren't related to what I'm working on. Like if someone starts singing, I either have to stop or move to somewhere quiet.

The worst is when I'm composing something in my head, and right at the height of it, when I'm getting all excited, realizing this probably won't really come to anything because I'll forget all of this and won't be able to get it down, but still I want to bring my internal composition to a close... someone turns on the radio or TV and it's playing some tune. As soon as that happens, it's like pulling the plug on your computer without saving your work. Everything I had been thinking is gone in an instant without a trace, along with the desire to try again. I don't even have to be concentrating all that hard for my focus to get blown.

My piano teacher used to ask me how I compose things if I don't always have a piano on hand. I had to tell her that sometimes I rather wouldn't. At some stages during the composition process, especially if I have an idea and just need it to really spin around and let it be loose, a keyboard is useless to me. I can't reproduce things on it like I hear them in my head. The keyboard is useful for externalizing, solidifying, improvising detail, working out complicated twists and turns which I only hear outlines of in my mind. But I don't need to be at one to conceive my ideas, and it is often when I am away from one that I can start writing something that ends up truly making an impact on me when it's externalized. Maybe this isn't so unusual, but I've always found it fascinating.

Where it becomes a real problem is when other musicians are around. I was once working with a friend of mine who wanted the two of us to collaborate on an album, but we work in different ways. He doesn't have perfect pitch like me, and while he's a great musician, he can't hear things and know what they are without sort of picking them out first. So he asks me if I have ideas for a melody to go with chords, and as I'm trying to stimulate my musical mind, he starts clanking on his guitar, saying "oh that's cool," and a few seconds later starts describing to me what notes he's doing, or asking me to remind him of that sick chord I had come up with a minute ago. and I wanted to cover my ears because firstly I know what you're playing you don't have to tell me, secondly when you ask me to think, I need musical silence, so this collab session might not work so well.

I'm really not sure what to make of this though. Is it a normal musician thing or does it indicate some heightened sensitivity even in that context? Could it be some sort of APD? Hmm...

 

[Progster]

Here's the kicker though. I am actually not more attentive. And on any given day my hearing, or my attention to the sounds I hear, is probably average, if not below average. Only in specific situations do I really notice that I'm picking up things that really aren't expected.

I did have my hearing tested when I was a kid, and it came back normal, but they tested for hearing and not for attention or APD - I don't even think that APD was a 'thing' in those days. They tested me with tuning forks.

I have heard that autistics are more likely to have perfect pitch - perhaps you are more sensitive to tone and pitch, rather than more atttentive or hearing sounds that others can't.

 

[musicalman]

I wouldn't doubt that. My perfect pitch isn't always active. For instance I'm not always listening to the pitches of people's voices or glasses clinking or anything like that. And when I'm not actively listening for stuff like that, everything is fine. It's when I start actually paying attention to sounds that the weird AP stuff kicks in. It's like my brain flips a musical switch and everything hyperfocuses and I easily get overloaded if more than one track is happening at once.

 

[Gracey]

...It's when I start actually paying attention to sounds that the weird AP stuff kicks in. It's like my brain flips a musical switch and everything hyperfocuses and I easily get overloaded if more than one track is happening at once.

Thanks for that.
I attended a community choir for the first time in a long time.

Learning a new song with four groups; bass, baritone, alto and soprano singing their different parts all together for the first time.

I heard everything. All four groups at once, some losing their way and changing key, out of tune or out of time.

At the time my reaction to the above confused me.

I think I may now have my answer.
Thank you

 

[musicalman]

Thanks for that.
I attended a community choir for the first time in a long time.

Learning a new song with four groups; bass, baritone, alto and soprano singing their different parts all together for the first time.

I heard everything. All four groups at once, some losing their way and changing key, out of tune or out of time.

At the time my reaction to the above confused me.

I think I may now have my answer.
Thank you

Glad my words gave you an answer! Not quite sure what the specific answer is
For me, learning especially is a sensitive time. If I was in that community choir and everyone was learning their part, including me, the situation you describe would drive me nuts also because I learn aurally, so I wouldn't be able to figure out what I was supposed to do. If I already knew my part I would generally be okay though, unless they were reeeally bad lol

 

[Gracey]

Glad my words gave you an answer! Not quite sure what the specific answer is
For me, learning especially is a sensitive time. If I was in that community choir and everyone was learning their part, including me, the situation you describe would drive me nuts also because I learn aurally, so I wouldn't be able to figure out what I was supposed to do. If I already knew my part I would generally be okay though, unless they were reeeally bad lol

I couldn’t sing a note, too much coming in to be able to get my part out there.
Rooted to the spot and feeling overwhelmed.

Err... yes, it was the first time everyone had come together as a group (after practicing at home first)

Chaos.

 

[Mary Anne]

Oh gosh, this thread explains everything. When at work in the rec center, I could not hear people speaking right next to me when the radio across the room was on, and or loud overhead fan was on. Add the noise of clattering dishes coming from nearby kitchen, and the boss calling my name from her office. All were “overlaid” sounds and it felt like it “shorted out” my brain. If people chatted or whispered, while I was leading a group, or consulting one on one- I could not “hear” or comprehend. I got a little ridiculed and disbelieved. No one understood! This went on for 11 months before I quit ( my last day is this Friday). I worked with lots of people suffering with schizophrenia- many said they need loud sounds to drown out the voices in their heads. This is the exact opposite of what I need.

My hearing is fine- I can hear every little bird call and rustling leaf in the forest. I can detect minute sound differences anywhere, and determine any musical note or vibration. But the overlaying of voices and loud noise is absolutely impossible to comprehend. I cannot learn or comprehend when there noise going on. .

 

[SteveH]

First it was hell!! PTSD! It was like trying to follow a foreign language--only studying it for a few months. I was able to comprehend individual words--individually. But by the time I processed the single word, the women had already spoken another sentence or two! The background banging was the clearest thing I heard. Then I head that phrase, and I immediately heard nothing else at all!!!! CRAZY Not another word from another person after that. That made me laugh. This is exactly what it is like for me to go out with coworkers for drinks at a moderately loud bar or restaurant--even when I am sitting next to them! Not good. At some point the talker looks at me like they are expecting a response-so I shake my head and smile or nod and say Yeah-- and I feel like a FOOL. So I only did that 2 times. I pick up on pattern and rhythm. I wonder if that is why his repeated phrase cut through everything else for me. It reminds me of a Gero Borlai drum jam in 19/16. You can repeat that phrase almost exactly over the jam. Actually kind of cool. It is on YouTube as well.