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The Placebo Effect

One of the things that should be taken into account in the evaluation of audio equipment, tweaks, etc is the Placebo Effect.

In the medical world, Placebos (open label or concealed) appear to mostly work on subjective symptoms, such as pain. They don’t work on an objective symptom — something a doctor could see or diagnose, such as a fracture on a bone. Placebos don’t shrink tumors, they don’t change your diabetes, and they’re not going to actually lower your blood pressure for more than 15 minutes, Basically, placebos appear to work on things that pass through the brain’s perceptual systems — where they can prompt the release of opioids and other endorphins (chemicals that reduce pain) in the brain. Bottom line, placebos can result in perceived improvement even where no actual improvement exists.

The same applies to our hobby. Probably too often, we sense improvement in SQ because of the Placebo Effect. Our money spent, hardware bias's, effective marketing, or being influenced by the experience of others (regardless if true), often have us believe that we have obtained improvements that don't really exist. This is not necessarily a bad thing because a perceived improvement, whether real or imagined is still an improvement to the listener. This may explain part of why certain "improvements" can't be measured. 

J.Chip
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mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
Uh, that was a very nice rant but this isn’t about measurements and observations are often deceiving.
dear djones this post was not a rant, like my post is with you now, this was about new hearing discovery....An informative post, different than my ranting post with you or your ranting post against "hearing confidence"....

And no, you are right it was not about measurements because all in audio is not about these necessary and promising but sometimes "deceiving" or successful mesurements ....

And sorry, but saying that "observations are often deceiving" is like saying erection are not always successful....Or saying that the ketchup bottle is often not tightly closed....

It is not a good punchline....It is plain common place in a boring conversation....


djones51
4,947 posts
 
Most of it was a rant. The rest wasn't really all that new but more information on the cocktail party problem. I did find the article interesting mainly because the way they moved a step closer was a focus on brain MEASUREMENTS  from fMRIs where speech is localized in the brain. What that has to do with the placebo effect I have no idea.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
I was reading one of these articles about placebo effect. Having been told by authoritative sources what a great article it is I of course learned a great deal from it. Until later when I realized the article itself suffered from the placebo effect. So now I read about a dozen articles at random, on random subjects, so as to avoid this harmful effect. The best method I have come up with so far is to read them blind. Wearing a blindfold totally eliminates all placebo effect from reading. Also eliminates all content. Oh well. The important thing when pretending to be a serious audiophile is to overthink everything, preferably to the point your thinking becomes indistinguishable from mindlessness.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 

Most of it was a rant. The rest wasn’t really all that new but more information on the cocktail party problem. I did find the article interesting mainly because the way they moved a step closer was a focus on brain MEASUREMENTS from fMRIs where speech is localized in the brain. What that has to do with the placebo effect I have no idea.

Brain measurements means nothing without a CORRELATION with a perception if we speak about hearing...

And placebo effect is constitutive of perception, it is not only a deception like skeptic club scientism use it for a political agenda...Our brain wait with his own bias for a sound to be like he wanted it to be for specific need...Then the word "placebo" refer to complex phenomenon...

For example placebo must be eliminated ONLY for objective statistical testing by company which want to test a drug; BUT only a fool would want to eliminate placebo effects  from the therapeutic....

It is the same thing for hearing evaluation by the brain.... It is called a learned bias....Like in speech recognition where the brain will correct reality or an unclear sets of soundspeech, some words spoken in some room for example, to deliver a better perception....
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Tell the scientists the brain measurements mean nothing, not me,  I didn't conduct the experiments. The main point was the ability to image the brain in order to understand the regions associated with the phenomenon. Without the instruments, measurements and science there would be no article. 
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