hearing, gender, new info...

[Goddess <thefates@concentric.net>]

  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.
 This show touched on the subject hearing, but not in the way we've been
talking about it.  I didn't go into any possible differences in physical
ability to hear, it discussed it from the point of view that we process
things differently in our brains.  There were two points which were brought
up...  The first was that woment were supposed to be able to hear sounds
like water drips much easier than men could, even being involved with doing
something else at the time.  They sighted examples where women noticed this
and asked their spouces or whoever, and they really didnt' notice but for
the women involved, it sounded really quite loud and annoying.  I myself
have noticed this type of thing before where a drippping faucett will
really loud to me and the guy I'm talking to won't notice until I get up
and turn it off, I always just thought it was because I have really good
hearing though, go figure...  I guess other women have said simular
things...  I wonder if this ties in with the study that Sarajane mentioned
as the sound of the drip is small and rythmic.  
  The second thing they talked about was the ability to tune things out or
hear more than one thing at once.  For this one, they played the audio
material so the TV audiance could hear it too so we could take part in the
test.  The case they showed for this whole idea was a husband who could
seemingly ignore his wife and be talking on the phone or doing something
else and totaly not aknowledge her presence, (I've seen this happen at
work) She'd have to practicaly yell before he'd seem to purk up and hear
her and respond.  Anyway, the test was to listen to someone reading a story
and then a second audio program with the same person reading a different
story at the same level would be mixed in and the idea was to try to listen
to one story and not the other one.  The conclusions of the researchers
were that women's attentions will be drawn back and forht 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.  It turned out that when The husband in this example was tunning his
wife out, she could say somehting about his job, (which is what he was
usually thinking about) and it would grab his attention, go figure...  If
it were me in her place, the mariage wouldn't last!  Anyway, it's
interesting to think about.  If I can find some more information about any
of this I will be sure to post it.  

smiles,

Corynne

two points whcih wer