taras22,
So how is it that we can recognize voices that we haven’t heard for a
while, say even decades....and even on lowest common denominator
transducers like telephones, and in noisy environments where voice
articulation is several notches below ideal.
How is the answer not obvious?
The differences between voices are very large in terms of timbre, harmonic content, pitch, vocal characteristics, etc. We certainly can, obviously, remember gross audible differences as between voices.And those differences are large enough to recognize through lower fidelity transmission.
But the more subtle a sonic difference, the harder it is to remember, which is why fast switching becomes ever more important.
If we talked for a while, you would likely recognize my voice if I called you a week later.
But if you listened to a song on my system at 70dB sound level, left for a week then returned to listen again, you would not be able to tell if I'd raised the volume by a couple db. That difference is far too small to keep distinct in your memory. You could have spent an entire week listening to the song at my place, but if you went a week between each "trial" to discern a couple dB level difference, we can expect you still wouldn't reliably identify the difference.
But you likely WOULD reliably identify that subtle difference if you could quickly switch back and forth between one sound file at 70 dB and the same one tweaked to 72 dB.
So if the differences are LARGE (especially multivariate), we can remember differences for longer. The more subtle the difference, the harder time retaining them in our memory. But...isn't that obvious?
So here is a thought, consider for moment that The Most Esteemed Mr Kait
is absolutely correct, and that there is something fundamentally wrong
about testing in the double bind manner. 'Cause, reality, you know, that
thingee that science is trying to map, is voicing, nay shouting, a much
different tune.
And everyone at your local Psychic Fair, or alternative healing convention, or anyone peddling pseudo-science, says the same thing.
Congratulations on the company you are keeping ;-)
