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Psychology of Sound – An infographic by the team at Independent Hearing Professionals
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Sound affects the way we live our lives in so many ways
- No products in the basket.
Psychology of Sound – An infographic by the team at Independent Hearing Professionals
Embed Psychology of Sound on Your Site: Copy and Paste the Code Below
Sound affects the way we live our lives in so many ways – many more than you could possibly imagine. Read on to explore the fascinating psychology of sound…
The way we use pitch completely alters the way our words can be perceived. The exact same sentence could be used but by altering the frequency in places, we could be seen as making a statement, being sarcastic, asking a question or more.
- “A woman without her man is nothing”
- “A woman; without her, man is nothing”
Perceptions would also be differing if we were to whisper a sentence softly, or shout it aggressively.
In movies, punches that are thrown often miss by a foot or more – but when sound effects are added, along with effective enough acting – our brains are convinced that the punch is ‘real’.
In an experiment carried out by Ecker and Heller, identical clips were shown to participants of an animated ball on screen with two differing background noises; one with the sound of a marble rolling, and other with the sound of a basketball bouncing.
- 72% of respondents in their trial said that the marble ‘rolled’ faster, even though they were exactly the same clip.
- 80% of respondents perceived the motion as a ‘roll’ when the sound of the marble rolling was playing.
- Only 20% of respondents saw the motion of ‘rolling’ when the sound of the basketball bouncing was playing.
This research shows how sound affects our perception of depth, speed and motion.
Mood and Emotion
Sounds can also dramatically change the mood that we’re in, or the emotions that we’re experiencing.
If you’re having a particularly stressful day, the sound of phones ringing, colleagues gossiping or loud music playing may all be infuriating. Alternatively, those things – particularly the latter two – may be putting you in a good mood or getting you excited depending on how the week has panned out or what else you have planned.
Music is often linked to memories – even distant ones – and when a particular song comes on it can instantly change the mood you’re in, depending on whether it reminded you of the good times or the bad, and depending on whether you miss those times, you want to relive them or whether you’re happy that you’ve experienced them. Listening to music because of the emotions it evokes is known as ‘cognitive appraisal’.
Emotion is something that is regularly influenced by sound. This is something that is used extremely effectively in filmmaking. The background music alone can change a scene from a tense, scary affair to an act of comedy. The screeching sounds used in Psycho and the crashing chords of Jaws heighten suspense and terror by tapping into our instinctive fears.
Music also stimulates activities of the amygdala, 