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Visual Confirmation Bias

Nice term, Paul. Very impressive. Very scientific.

And original. Well, at least I’ve never seen it before so I’m going to claim it as my own.

Visual Confirmation Bias (VCB) is a variation on confirmation bias that postulates that your brain causes audio gear, particularly speakers, to sound the way they look.

I came up with this idea a week ago when I got my new (used) KEF LS50s. (Note: I’m sure that dozens of people have been talking about VCB for a hundred years. I’m not particularly interested in who preceded me but raising points like that is one of the reasons that this forum exists.)


I had read lots about the speaker and I was expecting accuracy and soundstage precision. Their rich, full sound surprised me. These were not adjectives that were usually attached to these speakers.

I’ve been obsessed with these speakers for the past week, reading about them constantly. I find myself most in agreement with The Absolute Sound, which described the speakers—just after they were released—as possessing a “prevailing sweetness, a harmonic saturation that lends it a dark, velvety overall character, and a bloom that is so pleasing that I began affectionately dubbing it the butterscotch sundae of small monitors.”


But in the years that followed, listener after listener reported a “hard” “bright” sound. And when I look at the speaker, those words make complete sense. A tiny metallic driver in a small box? They look tinny and bright so no wonder some people hear that.

My own strongest experience with VCB: Many years ago, on the pretense of looking for a CD player, I walked into Sound By Singer at its old 16th St. location. After just enough feigned interest, I asked the salesman to listen to something “really pornographic.”

Surprisingly, he was happy to take me into one of the listening rooms. The only specific piece of equipment I remember was a pair of Wilson Speakers. I don’t know which model but they were white and just over six feet tall. Each the size of a restaurant-grade refrigerator. They were somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000.

Then I settled into the listening chair as the salesman started turning stuff on. Preamp, monoblock, monoblock, God knows what else. I just remember him throwing switch after switch. I have to believe all that gear equaled the price of the speakers.

If ever a system should have disappeared, it was this one. If ever the music should have been revealed to me, it was now. But even with my eyes closed, all I could see—and all I could hear—were these huge speakers looming over me. They could not have been more present in my listening experience.

Visual confirmation bias kept me from enjoying the finest pair of speakers that I’ll probably ever hear. The phenomenon is not to be underestimated.
paul6001
clearthinker's avatar
clearthinker
1,582 posts
 
By far the largest visual confirmation bias operates with women.
We all believe the great-looking ones will be good at everything else and 99% of the time we are disappointed.

1% of the time we stick with it because she is simply irresistible.

There is also of course tactile confirmation bias, where the figures are more like 25%-75%.
cal3713's avatar
cal3713
1,421 posts
 
If you believe you are immune from this effect, you can have your susceptibility demonstrated via a quick 1.5 minute youtube video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k8fHR9jKVM
thecarpathian's avatar
thecarpathian
4,433 posts
 
That would certainly be relevant to the conversation if your speakers had mechanical mouths that formed words while playing music. Mine did not come with a word forming apparatus. Just drivers that go in and out. And tweeters that do whatever it is they do. Quite interesting, though.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
By far the largest visual confirmation bias operates with women.

I'll say. One look at my bank account and they run!
cal3713's avatar
cal3713
1,421 posts
 
@thecarpathian In that demonstration, a visual stimulus creates an expectation that alters your auditory perception.  That is the conversation at it's most basic. 

The "word-forming apparatus" creates the expectation and the ears follow.  I could create the exact same effect by telling you before you hear the phrase that it's going to be "baa" or "faa."  Now we have a different stimulus manipulating expectations (now social information/gossip/rumor), but the effect will be the same. Once the expectation is made, the ears will follow.

A lot of people want to argue that we can't hear differences between gear because we're susceptible to such effects, but that's clearly not the case.  In the above example, you're not going to hear any word or phrase that the mouth makes, just ones that mostly conform the actual auditory stimulus that's impinging upon the senses.  
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