This week Philip G. and I made our presentation on binaural beats. The presentation can be found at the end of this post. Essentially, binaural beats are two channels of slightly different frequencies, each played in one ear of a set of headphones. Our brains perceive a pulsing of sound due to the perceived alternating of constructive and destructive interference. One thing which I forgot to mention during the presentation is that the speed of the pulsing is equal to the difference of the two tones being listened to. So if one ear hears 100 Hz and the other hears 105 Hz, the pulsing is at a rate of 5 Hz, or 5 pulses per second. The hope of binaural beats is that this pulsing or beating will cause the brains waves to be drawn toward that frequency. While I would like to see more studies on how exactly electrical signals in the brains are affected, I think there is enough evidence to be cautiously optimistic that there are positive effects. At the very least, I think it is helpful to sometimes have a steady sound to help keep focused, so long as it is not played too loudly. In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr lists four categories that all technologies can be placed into: those that extend our physical strengths those that extend our range or sensitivity of our sense, those that enable us to reshape nature, and those that "extend or support our mental powers - to find and classify information, to formulate and articulate ideas, to share know-how and knowledge, to take measurements and perform calculations, to expand the capacity of our memory" (44). Binaural beats, whether placebo effect or true science, is a technology that can extend and support our mental powers.
With this technology, I definitely agree with Dr. Buchanan. We do not fully understand the way this affects our brain, and because of this, many claims can be made, but with no scientific evidence to back it up.
ReplyDeleteOne of these claims is that binaural beats can help induce lucid dreams (LD). Lucid dreams are where the dreamer knows they are dreaming and they can manipulate their dream to their will. Some of the possible side effects of LD'ing are sleep paralysis, depression, and false awakenings. Most of these are due to the lack of REM and deep sleep where the chemicals in the brain rebalance.
I feel like this technology has too many possible risks associated to it to throw to the general public without a concrete understanding of just how it works and how it could possibly harm someone. It leaves too much room for pseudosciences, conspiracies, and hoaxes for my comfort.
http://binauralbrains.com/lucid-dreaming-binaural-beats/
I love this idea and and while we may not fully understand it, we do understand a great part of it and how it works. I would love to have a specific beat to play for every mood I'm in and while there is a possibility of it taking over some music, I'm still urged to ask if that's a bad thing? The majority of music on the radio nowadays is music that's mostly by computers and people talk-singing. And as far as playing instruments, I doubt that learning to play an instrument would become a thing of the past and even if it did, while some might argue that people who can play instruments are better in school, some studies suggest that that is not the case. Rather, the people who can play the piano for example get better grades not because they can play the piano but because typically the parents who pushed them to learn the piano often also value school higher and push their child to do well in school as well. I also think Wolf would love this idea of playing the music our minds want to hear and promoting faster synapses.
ReplyDeleteThis presentation actually sparked my interested and caused me to download one of the apps. While I can't say definitively that it works, it at least has a strong enough placebo effect that it does do something. I dislike the lack of control that we have over our bodies when it comes to alertness. It seems as though the worst times to fall asleep are the times where it is easiest as it is with being awake. Gaining some control over this aspect of my life (at least I think) is something that I really appreciate.
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