Do We All Hear Music the Same Way? (The Surprising Science)

This is an interesting video from a recording engineer on how we respond to music.

We do think he overemphasizes differences in perception among listeners – based on comments, they appear to notice different things. We actually think this tendency is a feature of cognitive processing, when for survival purposes we notice what is different because that is more likely to be a threat. But we appear to hear more than we comment on. We might add:

• People don’t have to literally get the same signal to the brain to have the same experience. Ear shape and hearing response, within limits, don’t obviously matter much because they are relative to a model we have of how the world sounds which is based on the ears we have. His opening example of the singer whose model is based on the sound of his voice that he hears is an example of a strong model based on the liseners “equipment”.
• Music is complex, and discussions with listeners will sometimes make you think they hear something different than you do, but it is often a matter of focus. You hear and I hear the same signals but neither of us can attend to all of the signal so we focus in various places. This is one reason that research shows that a second hearing of a track is fundamentally different than the first hearing (a fundamental issue with A/B testing).