Hearing Aids and Perception
Seeing is believing and with Christmas fast approaching many people are hoping for a Christmas present they have been waiting for. Unwrapping presents with family and friends is exciting and what you receive and what you hoped for may not match. If you, or your loved ones, are suffering from hearing loss then what you see and what you hear may not match exactly. So the best way to enjoy Christmas to the fullest is to get your hearing checked by a good, professional audiologist like Clarisound.
Perceptive Hearing
Perception generally feels effortless and numerous scientific studies support this. Audio cues help us to recognise objects more quickly and can even alter our visual perception of things. If your ears hear a sound and your eyes see something completely different then you may end up slightly confused, or disappointed. “Your brain spends a significant amount of energy to process the sensory information in the world and to give you that feeling of a full and seamless perception. One way that it does this is by making inferences about what sorts of information should be expected.” says Jamal R. Williams, University of California, San Diego. This means that we make informed guesses to help ourselves process information faster and this can lead to confusion when what we hear doesn’t match with what we expect to see. “Even when people are confident in their perception, sounds reliably alter them away from the true visual features that were shown,” Williams says.
See What You Want
In their scientific experiments, Williams and colleagues presented participants with figures that depicted two objects at various stages of morphing into one another, such as a bird turning into a plane. During which two types of sounds were played: a related sound like a birdsong or the buzz of a plane, or an unrelated sound. Participants were then asked to recall which stage of the object morph they had been shown. Participants were found to make their selection more quickly when they heard related, versus unrelated, sounds. Further experiments were conducted and the findings suggested that sounds alter visual perceptions only when audio and visual input occur at the same time. Research in psychological science suggests that these kinds of audio cues can not only help us to recognise objects more quickly but can even alter our visual perception. Pair birdsong with a bird and we see a bird, but replace that birdsong with another unrelated sound, and we’re not quite so sure what we’re looking at. So if you, or your loved ones, are losing your hearing then your ability to recognise anything may be slower and less reliable. The best gift you can give yourself, or your loved ones, for Christmas is the gift of good hearing. You won’t be disappointed when you start wearing a hearing aid. It will restore your hearing and quality of life at Christmas and all year round so that you’ll be able to quickly recognise everything accurately. The Christmas present that you need this Christmas may simply be good hearing.