Although the Twitter poll is possibly self-selecting, it seems a lot of people can hear sounds that aren't there. Maybe related to synaesthesia?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42237092

"the dilemma being discussed online is whether you can hear anything in this silent animation of skipping pylons:"

 

Edited December 5, 20178 yr by Strange

Reality is constructed and, as such, one hears and sees what one expects. Basically, your brain fills in the missing bits. I think it's not too far removed from the mechanism of pareidolia where the brain will try to make sense of a randomly arranged objects with an illusion. There's enough information in that gif to add sound to it.

Edited December 5, 20178 yr by StringJunky

Do you hear anything? I don't.

Maybe I'll see if I can add a poll...

1 minute ago, Strange said:

Do you hear anything? I don't.

Maybe I'll see if I can add a poll...

I can if I think about it but probably some people will do it spontaneously.

OK - I think it is imagined brought on by the shacking at impact and the strong visuals. I can certainly imagine the sound...  I watched the vid before reading about it and I could definitely imagine a thumping sound...  as it goes on, if you (or I in this case) concentrate it starts to seem as though you (I) might be hearing it....  maybe like a kind of self hypnosis.

 

I want to hear it, and even more I want to feel it in my bones, the way you do when something heavy thuds to the ground nearby. But I don't, so I suspect folks are just giving in to need for closure of the pattern.

I can't even imagine the sound but I think I am close to being aphantasic (we might have had a thread on that in the past) which gets mentioned in the Twitter thread.

Edited December 5, 20178 yr by Strange

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I can if I think about it but probably some people will do it spontaneously.

I think though that they will be tricked (like hypnosis or something) into hearing it...  they won't actually be receiving vibrational sound waves through the ears from the speakers of the PC....  it will be in their heads...  Like those that claim to hear god.

 

Just now, DrP said:

I think though that they will be tricked (like hypnosis or something) into hearing it...  they won't actually be receiving vibrational sound waves through the ears from the speakers of the PC....  it will be in their heads...  Like those that claim to hear god.

Oh, for sure. But people who "hear voices" (e.g. with schizophrenia) do hear them as real external sounds, even though they originate in the mind.

4 minutes ago, DrP said:

I think though that they will be tricked (like hypnosis or something) into hearing it...  they won't actually be receiving vibrational sound waves through the ears from the speakers of the PC....  it will be in their heads...  Like those that claim to hear god.

 

Absolutely, but the brain is capable of putting the sound in your ears as well as your head.

42 minutes ago, Strange said:

I can't even imagine the sound but I think I am close to being aphantasic (we might have had a thread on that in the past) which gets mentioned in the Twitter thread.

You know what else I want to hear? The sound of those electrical lines whooshing through the air, all of them Doppler shifting the pitch to make a hoo-WOP-hoo-WOP sound.

Saw this the other day.

One explanation was that internal noise is caused as the brain is trying to dampen the loud sound it expects to follow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_tympani_muscle

Hear it myself, pretty cool.