Do we hear sounds differently from each other?

It’s hard to say what is cultural or learned, and what is innate hearing difference. I worked with a man who was born in China, and is a Chinese musician; much of what he plays and listens to is so discordant to me. Some people love symphonies, others like rap; neither is my preference.

But there are differences in the way we are wired, too. My children hear harmonies that are nothing to me, I can’t hear them at all.

My parents used to say I have the voice of an angel, a friend relieved them of that error by saying “yes, a Hell’s Angel.”

Yes I believe so. Most obviously when it comes to sounds that weirdly irritate. For example I cringe in hearing human nails scratching the class blackboard, the green one but others don’t. I loathe hearing metal scraping other metals but an aunt of mine likes it!

I’m sure we do, considering our ears are all shaped differently and attached to out head differently. Based on what we listen to and through what we listen to will also have an effect, as the frequency of certain sounds will eventually condition our ears to hear certain things better than others.

@cbloom8 So you think the shape of our ears and canals determine sound and conditioning. Sound gets interpeted in our brains as well. So do you think nerves transfering the sound to our brain has something to do with it. Picking up certain freqencies better than others. Kind of the same ways we can pick up some smells better than others and some people can’t smell the same things you can.

Absolutely. In the lab we have all kinds of audio equipment with flat dynamic mics to 100kHz. You would be amzed at how much the hearing varies person to person. Peak at 6 kHz, drop off at 10kHz; Peak at 4kHz flat to 11kHz… Drop off at 3 khz. We tested ian infant. 24kHz! What the ? Is he a bat?

Here’s even more proof. That numb-nuts driving the 1000Watt system on wheels with the mega bass boom-booming can listen to that junk for more than 5 seconds. I can’t.

@worriedguy Thats probably because the numb-nuts are probably deaf after a few times of making the sounds so loud.

@Pandora Yes, the nerves probably do have something to do with it. If you listen to a lot of one frequency and less of another, the nerves will pick up on and analyze those more common frequencies better. For example, if you listen to a lot more bass heavy then treble heavy music, the nerves in your brain should be able to notice a lot of different sub-tones and frequencies among the bass, while they won’t be able to pick up as much variation in the treble.

You totally stole that idea from my friend… jk :D

Yes. Hearing is on a continuum with all our senses from none to extreme sensitivity. Some people are tone deaf; others have perfect pitch. My husband cannot hear the difference between ah and eh if I put my hand in front of my mouth. Taste, smell, touch and sight are similarly different from person to person.

@Sunny2 I guess that may also be why some people have a really difficult time picking up languages. Or they may learn it but when they go to say the words it doesn’t sound anything like its suppose too.

No one I know can hear like I can. My band mates often hate me, lol. I always let someone know when they’re even the slightest out of tune or if something was played wrong.

@Pandora Right. Pronunciation is only one part of learning a language. I hear well and can pronounce the sounds, but I can’t remember vocabulary sufficiently to become proficient. Then there is the grammar etc. etc. Hearing ability mostly affects the ability to talk to others. You can learn and understand what you read, without having to speak.