Can you Hear What I Hear?

I was fascinated by this claim that the only reason that teens can hear the "teen buzz" ringtone is due to their less developed brains. I google searched other possible reasons that we can hear this and older people can't. I found it's possibly due to deterioration of the eardrum from aging.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/stoe0062/psy_1001%20section%2021%20spring%202012/

(The fourth entry: Can You hear the Buzz?)

It's interesting that you heard the reason younger people could hear that sound was because of brain development. I had always heard it was because we have more 'hair cells' in our ears, and more sensitive ones. We've just been exposed to less sound (because of our age) than older people, and so less of our hair cells have died. I don't know what the real answer would be.

I have to agree with the comment above. I have never heard of hearing higher frequencies better, or a buzzing noise, because of a less developed brain although that is an extremely interesting concept. I had heard that it was because as we get older our sense of hearing gets worse from all the wear and harsh conditions over the years; in turn, as we age, we cannot hear high frequencies as well as we could at younger ages. Therefore, more young people hear buzzing noises.

I agree with the first comment, where less of our hair cells have died and this is the explanation as to why we can hear things that adults cant. This is interesting to me because I too have seen this in my life. I went to the science museum with my grandparents and they had a sounds frequency booth. Sure enough, I could hear everything as a young child, they couldnt hear anything.

I also have to agree with the comments above. I haven’t heard of this theory that if the brain is more developed then it gets harder to hear high pitch frequencies, but if it is true then that is very interesting. Do you know about any reliable studies that have been conducted that prove this theory about the correlation between the development of the brain and the ability to hear high or low frequencies? I also wrote my blog on our hearing senses and what I learned was that we lose our hearing because of loud noises or just simply because of old age.

When I learned about the "buzz" I tried it with my mom, because I was interested to see if it was actually true that older people couldn't hear the buzz. It was so weird that I could here it and I wanted it to turn off, but my mom just sat there and stared at me like I was crazy or just messing around with her. There are different frequencies that a person cannot hear when they get older. If you decreased the frequency of the high pitched "buzz" an older person could here it.

I do find it funny that even though our brains are less developed than older people's we can hear more. You'd think it would be opposite, the more developed are brains are, the more variation in sounds and pitches we can hear.

What is the source that you used that claims it is due to an undeveloped brain? How do you think that the differences in our hearing impacts our perception of the world?

I also used to play the high-pitched sounds during class to see if my teacher could hear it or not and most of the time they could not. It was funny to watch the teachers reaction after all the kids in class would flinched at the sound and they would have no idea why. I also thought that they were unable to hear it because kids had better hearing than adults and i find it interesting that it is because of how developed the brain is.