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Unexplainable

Making Sense: How sound becomes hearing

Unexplainable

Vox

Life Sciences, Science, Natural Sciences

4.62.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the same way optical illusions trick our eyes, audio illusions can trick our ears. This raises a fundamental question: What is hearing, and how much of it is made up by our brains? This is the first episode of our new six-part series, Making Sense. You can find more of Diana Deutsch’s auditory illusions at https://bit.ly/3Mdh6H4, Matthew Winn's research at http://www.mattwinn.com/Research.html, and Mike Chorost's writing at https://michaelchorost.com For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a great place to view show transcripts and read more about the topics on our show. Also, email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and

0:07.8

justice produced with Fox Creative.

0:11.1

Florida School Teacher Andrea Phillips always loved her job, and she spent years collecting

0:16.2

hundreds of books to help struggling readers discover new possibilities.

0:21.0

But then her district informed her and her colleagues that their classroom libraries were

0:25.2

off limits until every book was approved, all because of an intentionally vague new law.

0:31.6

Hear her story on the latest episode of Into the Mix, subscribe now.

0:55.2

For a lot of people figuring out what you're meant to do with your life is a long winding process.

1:15.5

But for some lucky ones, a career path becomes clear in an instant.

1:19.8

Well I've always been very interested in music, I spent all my time playing the piano and

1:25.4

composing and so on.

1:27.3

For Diana Deutsch that moment happened back in the 50s, but it didn't go exactly how she

1:31.8

imagined it.

1:35.5

My music teacher performed at the BBC third program in the mornings.

1:42.5

She was playing piano in a trio.

1:44.5

And I was asked to be a page turner.

1:47.7

Essentially she'd be turning the pages of the sheet music so her teacher wouldn't have to stop playing.

1:52.3

So it went up to BBC House and I was all of 16 at the time and very excited about doing this.

1:59.2

Diana had always dreamed of being a musician, so even just turning pages on the BBC felt

2:04.9

like the big time.

2:06.4

What happened was I turned the first page, no problem.

2:09.8

I turned the second page, no problem.

...

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