White noise improves learning by modulating activity in midbrain regions (2014) (opens in new tab)

"However, a recent study in the JAMA Journal of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery states that white noise’s lack of structure can worsen tinnitus symptoms. The study researchers also suggest that white noise could possibly “accelerate the ageing of the brain” and increase the risk for dementia"

Study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-...

On the subject of hearing loss, can I plug my idea again that all devices should have a "constantly gradually decrease volume" option? It's way to easy to turn up a device for a temporary reason and then an hour later you realize the sound has been way too loud for a long time.

I would rather push a button to turn up the volume twice an hour than realize I've been damaging my hearing for the last hour for something I'm barely paying attention too. Especially for music, if I notice the volume decreasing, I can turn it up, and if I don't notice, then just let a fade to nothing since I'm not paying attention apparently.

Must every article on HN about some positive discovery around noise, hearing, and tinnitus always be followed with a top comment about how everything we think about these things is wrong, and everything we’re doing is damaging our hearing and/or making our tinnitus worse?

I’ve been sleeping with Marpac sound machines for years, partly due to tinnitus but also partly just to help with sleep, only to find out it’s probably damaging my hearing and/or making my tinnitus worse.

Can someone please post some positive news about hearing/tinnitus?

This is seriously the second link in like 3 days.

Maybe I should just never click any HN article hearing related.

"nerves that fire together, wire together" - ha, that's quite a profound statement. I've been thinking recently how we manage to hear harmonics as one sound without preexisting algorithms in our brain to detect them, and this is probably the answer. Edit. This also means we hear sounds differently. Someone who listens much to classical music hears harmonics really well, but someone who listens to sounds with different aharmonic structure, will learn to hear those aharmonic patterns as highly musical.

White noise is insidious. There was this one team that sat in an area with lots of white noise. They seemed to like it - said it helped them focus. Now they all have hearing deficits.

Not necessarily a fan of white noise but I’d take white noise over unsubstantiated claims from a Popsci book any day. Those things are chokefull of un reveiwed conjecture that has no place in a book or anywhere else except the authors brain where all they should be is hypotheses.

I'd take white noise over distracting background noises (i.e., roommates, coffee shops) in a heartbeat. The point isn't to enjoy the sound per se, it's to block distractions.

But yes, I do prefer brown noise over white noise by a wide margin.

Not so much a fan of white noise either, but I like brown noise so much I wrote my own generator: https://justbrownnoise.com

"Like" is the wrong word. Silence is best, but if there are lots of auditory distractions in your environment then white noise drowns them out pretty well and just fades into a background hum for me.

When I code I use white noise, or pink noise, but it's run through a low pass filter to trim off the harsh high ends.

I'll also add a slight comb filter then modulate the frequency with a slow LFO (around .05 hz) to give it some movement. Some extra processing then happens like a compressor to even it out a bit and add warmth.

It's quite effective, especially for noisy environments.

At least for me, it's not listened to with the same volume you'd normally use for music or speech; white noise at that volume would definitely be awful. It's meant as barely perceptible background noise.

Music with words distracts me as I like to 'understand' songs and just enjoy the message.

I tried electronic music and as a European it really makes me want to dance, hah.

By far the best music for me is classical music. It literally makes tedious things like writing emails, documenting and coding much more enjoyable.

Not to be confused with the ‘brown note’. Uug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note

I like this site, that lets you tune it:

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/greyNoiseGenerator.php

But yes, pink or brown noise is better than white.

Harsh Noise Wall is where it's at.

I'm a fan of pink noise.

" IDK how much difference the content of a doodle makes?"

I'm a doodler. I also make art. And you are right, the cognitive load of the doodle makes a difference. My 'learning doodles' are really a mindless endeavor, and they only realistically look arty because I have been making art for decades now. The actual content of the doodle matters little. The real point is more keeping the hands busy and the mind lightly engaged with something else - I suppose it is akin to listening to a podcast while walking or driving.

I can get something similar from taking notes, but even that is better if I have doodle space since I don't need to write everything down.

Regarding doodling, it seems that any active productive study method is at least somewhat beneficial. I've found this in my own personal experiments. For example, testing myself with cloze deletions, creating Anki cards, generating mind maps, Cornell notes, inline annotation/marginalia, doodling, generating questions, generating mnemonics, mind palaces, etc.

An interesting one is reading and reciting out loud: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2017.1...

Another non-intuitive method that is helping me a lot is pacing around my house slowly while I read. It goes to show that cognition is an embodied phenomenon. It's unintuitive when intelligence is viewed from the traditional split mind/body paradigm but just take a look at an image of our nervous systems. Those wires to and from our brain and guts wrap around every part of us.

I got it from HN as well and it is excellent! Kudos for both Andrew and whoever commented a link to it :)

Interesting, could it be possible to elaborate which listening device you are using?

Voluntary white noise is the bottom of the adverse environmental factors list I'm worried about.

When I lay down for bed I play a track called Pink Noise for Sleeping on a loop and set a 3 hour alarm that shuts off the music when it runs out. https://music.apple.com/us/album/pink-noise-for-sleeping/111...

When I'm awake I play Lightning Bolt, Oozing Wound and Discordance Axis on repeat. I guess they're so loud they're almost like noise lol

brown noise for me. brown and grey, mixed.

This happens to me when listening to a white noise app / machine that has a short loop. You can buy machines that are explicitly non-looping and it's so much better.

The Star Trek: TNG engine room ambiance is up there.

This is the old scientific American article (from 1973) from where a lot of the claims originate, to my knowledge:

Gerald Oster, "Auditory beats in the brain", Scientific American, 229 (4): pages 94-102, October 1973.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/auditory-beats-in...

From what I understand, later controlled studies do not seem to back the claim that specific frequency differences lead the brain to an alpha state, or theta state etc. as claimed. But there may be potential in reducing anxiety:

R Padmanabhan 1, A J Hildreth, D Laws. "A prospective, randomised, controlled study examining binaural beat audio and pre-operative anxiety in patients undergoing general anaesthesia for day case surgery", Anaesthesia, 2005.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16115248/

Sure. Thinking that frequencies picked up by your ears has any sort of 1:1 correspondence or influence with the irrelevant overall firing frequency distribution of your brain is like thinking that adjusting the speed of your washing machine to an integer harmonic of 440hz helps keep your piano in tune.

I don't think so.

Any music can stimulate the release of dopamine and I would argue that white noise would be on the lower end of that comparison. Plus, the amount of dopamine released from listening to music or white noise would be trivial compared to drugs, alcohol, binge eating, nicotine, video games, or binge-watching TV. And, the tricky thing about addictions is that they're easier to replace than to simply stop, so it's important to find a healthier replacement and then try to taper the newer behavior. I don't see white noise helping directly with addictions because of how imbalanced they are as stimulation sources.

I found that earplugs + headphones with brown/grey noise absolutely made the universe go away. I don't use it now because my work has changed and I work in a single-person office, but I found this super effective at reducing distractions.

This is genuinely creepy sounding. It might be less creepy if they didn't compress the time so much