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The Power of Assumptions

A few weeks ago I was in some leadership classes at work that were taught by an PhD Industrial Psychologist. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. He was very knowledgeable about what is going on inside the brain during different actions and thought processes. One example was that the act of throwing a ball to someone on the move (i.e. playing catch) uses the same pathways in your brain that all delayed gratification decisions do. You are holding the ball while visualizing where the ball and person will meet at a point in the future. This is why it is very important to play arch with your kids. It trains their brains to use these pathways and help them develop the skills necessary to delay gratification.

How does this relate to audio? Another thing he takes about was the power of assumptions. When we believe/assume that something is true the way our brain reacts to it chemically and electrically is identical rather it is in fact true or not. The secondary effect that happens is that we then become supremely aware of every little thing that supports our assumption and we blindly ignor anything contradictory. He said that this is why it is so difficult to get someone to change their opinion of you. His point was that we needed to be aware of this involuntary response and be willing to ask ourselves if there was any other way to look at a given situation.

It made me think about how this directly relates to audio. What we assume can actually have a stronger impact our experience than the objective facts. For example, if I assume that solid state amplifiers are inferior it will be extremely difficult for me to have a positive experience with one because my brain will be working overtime to find a way to support my assumption. It might take hearing a solid state amplifier while believing it to be a tube amplifier to force my to be objective and at least consider that a solid state amplifier might sound great.
mceljo
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,200 posts
 
One truism all good business people know well is that perception matters the most in many cases.

Engineers and scientists may know this as well, but that is not what their practice is about.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Onhwy61, Sure, if you hear music in your head then audio system would even interfere.

I'm just suggesting that improvement (perhaps you missed this word in my post) real or not is still a perceived improvement.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"06-02-14: Kijanki
These preconceived notions of weak minds are not necessarily a bad thing. If they can hear improvement that's fine - what difference does it make if improvement is real or only in their head?"

Whatever the difference is in their bank account.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Zd542, people tend do "believe" more when they spend money. I remember story about two groups of people given placebo pill that supposed to help with something they suffered from. The only difference was that one group got it for free while the other had to pay $10 per pill. There was some improvement in both groups but it was much stronger with people who had to pay. In similar fashion price of the gear might affects our perception. Some "contrary" people believe that cheap can always sound as good. They reported even better results with lamp cord than quality speaker cables (WHAT!!! a lamp cord? - that's way too expensive - rusted barb wire is better).
mceljo OP
1,357 posts
 
One of the problems with audio is that there is absolutely more than just your ears involved with your perception of sound. This is compounded by the fact that it is impossible to describe our perception of sound to others because they have to understand it based on their experience.
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