What we read
We have just read and checked our understanding of "The Loudest Sound You've Never Heard" (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013).
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Our response
Having read the text a couple of times, Bixby and Scanlon now invite us to respond to the ideas in it in a critical thinking exercise.
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Bixby and Scanlon's questions
Having spent a couple of minutes planning, respond to one only of these questions in a comment.
- Would it be advantageous for humans to be able to hear infrasound? Why or why not? Briefly explain the pros and cons that you thought of.
or
- In our daily lives, we are surrounded by all sorts of sounds. What sounds are the most pleasant of relaxing? Do you enjoy being in complete silence?
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Reference
- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
In my daily life in Bangkok, I'm surrounded by sound, and most of it is noise, that is, unpleasant sound. The sound of traffic is noise that I don't like, although if it's at a constant level that's not too loud, it doesn't bother me a lot. However, the sharp, loud sounds of a motorcycle roaring down my soi at night, or the rumble of the traffic when I'm walking down Silom to do my daily grocery shopping can be very annoying. If I'm working, I like silence, although sometimes it helps to put on some music I don't know to block out other sounds that might distract me.
ReplyDeleteMy first idea was that I like silence. I immediately thought of my brothers home in the country in Australia, it's so quiet that cars on the distant road sound loud. I love sitting on his veranda enjoying a coffee, or just enjoying the silence. But actually, it isn't really complete silence. There are birds calling to each other in the trees. His cattle moo to each other. There is wind rustling the trees, and if those things aren't making any sound, it's quiet enough to hear animals moving in the grass, or water running into the water troughs, and the house creaks as it warms in the heat and cools in the late afternoon. So although I enjoy silence, it's not really complete silence. Perhaps what I really enjoy are the very low sounds of nature at peace. In fact, sometimes when it's really quiet, I can hear my own breathing and even my heart beat, so I'm not sure that I've ever really experienced complete silence. I certainly don't get complete silence in Bangkok. Sometimes at night, the only sound is the very soft hum of my air conditioning, which is easy to not hear, but if I concentrate, the sounds from Silom and Surawong Roads are still there, even if very low.
Would I enjoy complete silence or would it freak me out? I don't know.
There are many sounds in our lives. But the sound which is the most pleasant of relaxing in my daily life is the melody sound like piano, guitar and saxophone because when I get stressed, this sound can makes me feel better and relax. But sometimes it can be a music that makes me enjoy with it too.
ReplyDeleteI like those sounds, too. When I was young, I liked the sound of the flute enough to study it. I don't play today, but I still like listening to music. Sometimes In concentrate on it, and at other times, it just seems soothing to have it in the background if I'm working or doing something that doesn't need too much concentration. If I need to concentrate, I prefer silence or a meaningless, low sound that doesn't communicate anything that might distract me. I can't listen to my favourite music when I'm working or I end up listening to the music instead of working.
DeleteI don't think that it would be good if people can hear infrasound. Although the infrasound from volcano eruption can make windows breaking hundreds of miles away and we can't notice that, the sound must be very deafening so it can travel hundreds of miles. Elephants can make a loud infrasound too, it can travel up to 10 kilometers. Also, the experiments have shown that 22% of people may be affected by infrasound and infrasound might have make them feel troubled although they can't hear it. Imagine if everyone can hear infrasound, probably, everyone will feel trouble too. So, I think that it must be better if we can't hear it.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really thought about this because the other question interested me more, but I think Champ makes good points. However, I'm also wondering, if we had evolved to be able to hear it the way some other animals can, would infrasound have the same negative effects on us? I presume that elephants, whales and birds do not find it an unpleasant sound, so if we could hear it, maybe we would also find it pleasant rather than not.
DeleteI think it would be advantageous for human, example before the volcano erupts, there is a shape in sharp if we can hear infrasound, we can know and go out of this volcano area. But if people hear a lot of infrasound, people might have bad feeling.
ReplyDeleteSo, how are you going to respond to A's very different ideas on this question?
DeleteI would be better that human can hear infrasound. According to the article, elephants make communication to each other by sounding infrasound. Other elephants can recognize where the source locates. Unlike human, we have never them. News often reported wild elephant hurts building, plant and human. Consequently, if we heard elephants, we could keep away from dangerous situations and losing. Soon, foresty office releases a device to wear on elephat's neck, based on GPS. Officers can track and locate wild elephants in deep forest. With elephants-hearing ability, they would like to trace those wild animals and prevent them from their ivory cut.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be advantageous for humans to be able to hear infrasound because if we can hear and used infrasound, we can communicated with each others to exchange an information or tell each others what do we want to tell them. And it would be more comfortable if we can contact others who are far away from us or used infrasound to navigate the ways. But if we can getting a low frequency sound may make us feel annoyed or trouble, if we are in a place that sound is too loud it would be dangerous to our ears,too.
ReplyDeletePeople can hear the sound every day since they were born. However, there are some ranges of the sound that people could not hear such as infrasound, which is the sound that has the range of frequency less than 20 hertz. In my opinion, I would be good if we could hear the infrasound for several reasons. First, we will be able to understand or capture the meaning of the sound from animals. We would know what they would like to express to tell others. For example, a whale send the sound to tell others that there is a predator come to this way. If we were able to capture the sound, we would be able to leave that way when we are diving. Second, when the natural disaster come to us, we would be able to recognize that before, which is similar to the birds know that the rain is coming. Afterward, we could prepare to protect ourselves from the damage.
ReplyDeleteWe heard the sound every day even when we are sleeping. The sound that is the most pleasant to me is the water sound such as the sound of the river, the sound of the waterfall, and even, the sound of the shower in a bathroom, which is a reason why I take long time to take a shower. When my house is completely silent, I always heard the "wee..." sound, which I don't like it. It makes me feel dizzy.
Human would have the advantage to be able to hear infra sound because they would know the communication another animals like elephant, whales and another animals that we can not hear before. We can predict storms, hurricane without use instrument,so they have warning sign if they hear infrasound. However, it would be dangerous because only the sound that they can hear make people feeling troubled, if we can hear more might we have another affected too.
ReplyDeleteIn my daily life,the sound that is the most pleasant of relaxing is natural sound like waterfall sound, bird sound, the wind affect the trees. I listened by YouTube that people record or when I went to natural park it make feel relaxed from the fresh air and the animals sounds surround natural park.In my opinion I like complete silence when I slept,it make me more sleeping well.