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Corynne wrote:
>
> This might be of more concern to Laurie, (as she was asking about more
>info about hearing and gender) Sarahjane and Kim but I remebered some
>other
>information I learned about possible differences in hearing between the
>genders. There was a special edition of 20/20 a few months back which was
>strictly devoted to the discussion of cerebral differences between
>genders.
[snip...]
Thanks Corynne! Very interesting, and kind of funny too - not having seen
the
program, I was reminded of the classic sitcom scene of a hapless husband
oblivious to his frustrated wife, with countless satirical variations that
are
flattering to neither ;-). The question of which perceptual behaviors are
culturally/environmentally learned as opposed to being physiological in
origin
is extremely complex. (The old conundrum "which comes first, the chicken
or
the egg" comes to mind, not to mention the tangled circular web of
physiological changes *triggered* by certain behaviors.) Anyway, I
emailed ABC
to see if the transcript and references could be gotten.
>to one story and not the other one. The conclusions of the researchers
>were that women's attentions will be drawn back and forth between the two
>stories and get bits and pieces of each and have an almost impossible time
>staying on one story while the other one is also going which is exactly
>what happened to me. I've had this before also and it's really annoying
>sometimes but it's good if your trying to listen to more than one person
>at
>a time. Supposedly, men can tune out one story much more easily and
>listen
>to it only, they seem to have trouble listening to more than one thing at
>a
>time.
I wonder if this occurs primarily with speech, or if any of these supposed
differences are also evident in how males and females perceive music --
multiple layers, counterpoint, melody, etc.?
More sophisticated, aware listening, as musicians generally experience it,
is a
skill that can be developed with training and practice. It seems that
such
people would not necessarily populate the statistical norm that is being
discussed here.
My sweetie, who was a fighter pilot, just told me an interesting and
vaguely
related story about airline pilot training. (This was a while back, when
there
were extremely few, if any, women in either the cockpit or control tower.)
The
problem was alerting the pilot, whose attention was already considerably
divided due to a flight emergency, to extremely important warnings.
During
landing, one of the most critical signals is to lower the @#$%^&* landing
wheels! They found out the hard way that big blinking red warning lights
were
often ineffective. They added a unique, loud, and persistent beep. Some
pilots *still* didn't notice, and would land gear up. A blaring horn
blast was
tried, but occasionally missed, the consequences of which tended to make
passengers rather unhappy. Then somebody had an inspiration... get this:
the
most effective warning device, amidst the general cockpit hubbub, was a
woman's
voice calmly telling the guy to get his gear down! (No comments from the
peanut
gallery.) I wonder if it is still as effective nowadays, since women's
voices
are much more common in that environment? Also, what works best with
women
pilots? ...Hey, I bet they don't even *need* to be warned, they're already
on
top of it! ~#:-))))
Anyway, I can hear it now. Music For Landing Very Large Aircraft...
Gee, the "my girlfriend's taste in music" thread has gone through a few
permutations! (BTW, what does this list usually talk about? Something
about
loops? Trying to remember...)
and smiles to you, too, Corynne --
laurie
>From lists@slip.net Sun Mar 15 21:21:26 1998