[HN Gopher] White noise improves learning by modulating activity...
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White noise improves learning by modulating activity in midbrain
regions (2014)
Author : Friday_
Score : 153 points
Date : 2022-03-08 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I find brain.fm or movie soundtracks work great for study, focus
| or deep work.
|
| I've tried white noise and can, like others, attest that brown or
| pink are better.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| There are several instances that I know about of machine learning
| / signal processing methods ( for example empirical mode
| decomposition) that purposely inject noise into the algorithm to
| improve accuracy / fidelity / independence. I'm sure that others
| here can provide better examples than I.
| earedpiece wrote:
| Makes sense, since Nikola Tesla said, "If you want to find the
| secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and
| vibration".
|
| Probably sound vibrations, create an orchestra which is pleasant
| for the mind, althogh this is pure speculation.
|
| I would love top scientist to do more research in this area.
| bmitc wrote:
| I've used these sound machines for years to both sleep and work:
| https://yogasleep.com/collections/sound-machines/products/do...
|
| For me personally, white-ish noise has always been a calming
| factor, which allows me to relax and thus concentrate, if I need
| to.
| rimzyy wrote:
| tyjen wrote:
| Noise in general helps in several area in my life:
| - Working out, pump up music for motivation. - Cleaning or
| chores, enjoyable music or podcasts for motivation or filling
| space. - Light, shallow work, lo-fi to upbeat chill without
| vocals for motivation and masking environmental noise. -
| Deep, concentrated work, white or pink noise for masking
| environmental noise. Depending on the task, I will opt for
| silence.
|
| To further explain white or pink noise use benefits in my case,
| they provide subtle stimulation and are minor distractions if I
| concentrate on them. However, the utility gained from masking
| environmental noise exceeds the utility loss in the rare moments
| that I shift focus to the white or pink noise, so I think it's a
| net positive for me.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| White noise is fine and all, but nothing beats a good old 10h
| Server-Room Humming video.
| bduerst wrote:
| The _Star Trek: TNG_ engine room ambiance is up there.
| ggrrhh_ta wrote:
| Came to hear to say that was one of my favorite noises :)
| thenthenthen wrote:
| I enjoy some noise, like fan, AC, but get auditory hallucinations
| from most 'noise generators' (apps). I start to hear voices,
| orchestras tuning etc. Very strange and distracting. I'm thinking
| it's my mind trying to make sense of all the random frequencies?
| Any tips to counter this? ( I could record my fan and play
| that... in a loooooong loop ;)
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| 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.
| copperx wrote:
| Why would they loop? Creating white noise is one line of
| bash.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Most of these machines are 'multi-function' machines that
| play crickets / waterfalls, etc in addition to white noise.
| That sound is best handled by capturing a snippet and
| looping it over and over again. The same applies for white
| noise as well unfortunately.
|
| Also it's usually a good idea to buy a little machine for
| this that uses like 5W vs running your computer all night.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| It's crazy they loop, it just takes one transistor in
| avalanche mode to create white noise. Maybe I should mod
| my Bose Sleep buds that have ridiculously bad sound
| quality and short loops (and battery life).
| omnicognate wrote:
| It's easy electronically but if you're writing an app for
| a device/OS that doesn't implement that capability and
| expose it to apps you're left with either pseudorandom
| numbers or a sample. A very long losslessly compressed
| sample can be good but would require a large download, so
| in practice these apps generally have short, lossily
| compressed samples. These samples (and the alternative,
| pseudorandom numbers) sound absolutely awful. A human
| mind on the verge of sleep is an insanely powerful signal
| processing device and recogniser/producer/completer of
| patterns.
|
| Raspberry Pis have hardware random number generators. I
| use one to generate smoothed brown noise for sleep. It's
| blissful.
|
| I've been meaning to get round to solving this problem on
| phones, making an app that can, without a ridiculously
| large download, generate really high quality sleep noise.
| I have some ideas but it's not an easy problem.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| I prefer soft 8D audio for concentration/work-mode on alexa
| speaker.
|
| If I'm anxious - more upbeat sounds and pop/rock songs like
| Linkin Park or Imagine Dragons, w/ headphones.
|
| Closing your eyes is needed and just follow the music as it makes
| you feel a little dizzy. I never understood 'ASMR' until I found
| this music thing, really feels trippy. Helps a lot w/ my
| autism/ADHD.
| sn41 wrote:
| i find pink noise more relaxing than white noise when i want to
| focus.
| omnicognate wrote:
| White noise is horrible to listen to. Brown noise is where it's
| at. Exponentially smoothed for the connoiseurs, get that soft
| rumble going.
|
| White noise is an equal mix of all frequencies. It's what you get
| from radio static. It's hissy and nasty.
|
| Brown noise is the sound of things being randomly bumped around
| (Brownian motion). It's what you get from waterfalls and thunder.
| It's smooth and delicious.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| I'm a fan of pink noise.
| lasagna_coder wrote:
| Harsh Noise Wall is where it's at.
| AnonMessiah wrote:
| Merzbow is my preferred "focus time" noise
| lasagna_coder wrote:
| Kudos, I take it you're focusing on your good taste in
| music.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Not to be confused with the 'brown note'. Uug
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| 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.
| westurner wrote:
| White noise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28402424 :
|
| > _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation#Overview says
| brainwaves are 1-150 Hz? IIRC compassion is acheivable on a bass
| guitar._
|
| Doodling improves memory retention / learning, too. IDK how much
| difference the content of a doodle makes? Hypothesis: Additional
| "cognitive landmarky" content in the doodle or received waveforms
| would increase retention up to a limit.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| " 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.
| izzygonzalez wrote:
| 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.
| aedocw wrote:
| On a MacOS machine with Homebrew, run "brew install sox" and then
| use this to generate brown noise (or white or pink)
|
| play -n synth brownnoise gain -25
| amelius wrote:
| > dopaminergic midbrain
|
| Could white noise also help with addiction?
| tyjen wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| Ok, but perhaps you could listen longer to it, e.g. while
| sleeping.
| eecc wrote:
| I prefer pink (and occasionally punk) noise
| izzygonzalez wrote:
| 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
| mgkimsal wrote:
| brown noise for me. brown and grey, mixed.
| wenc wrote:
| I play brown noise when I work. It really helps.
|
| I just go "Alexa play brown noise". It helps my brain filter out
| noises.
|
| The only thing it doesn't work for is barking dogs. For that I
| have to put on my headphones and play lofi on top of Alexa's
| brown noise.
| fergonco wrote:
| Andrew Huberman saying in a podcast that it's not the case for
| verbal recall:
|
| https://youtu.be/Ze2pc6NwsHQ?t=3350
|
| Interesting podcast, btw. got it from HN few days ago.
| bacro wrote:
| I got it from HN as well and it is excellent! Kudos for both
| Andrew and whoever commented a link to it :)
| naasking wrote:
| He's pretty good for sure, but he's a little too excitable on
| some topics and makes some leaps. I know he's done this on
| some of his exercise science episodes, for instance, with his
| discussion of cold therapy.
| gfosco wrote:
| I got into it because of tinnitus, and used it to sleep, but
| eventually started using it when working. Years ago in menlo
| park, with headphones on and white/brown noise drowning out the
| world. I likened it sensory deprivation, as nothing rises above
| the noise floor and it can fade away from your attention.
| fouc wrote:
| From Norman Doidge's book "The Brain That Changes Itself", I
| learned that:
|
| Long term white noise exposure might be associated with hearing
| loss, especially age-related. The theory was that "nerves that
| fire together, wire together", too much white noise compared to
| clear sounds will cause the neural mapping for sounds to
| gradually become fuzzier, making distinctions between sounds will
| become harder.
| petra wrote:
| "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-...
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Hmmm, I wonder what implications that has for those of us who
| like to sleep with a fan.
| amelius wrote:
| Or walking by the sea (though that's more akin to pink
| noise, I think)
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Headline in 30 years: The long term effect of white noise caused
| a decline in IQ by 5%.
|
| We would do better not to manipulate our brain when we do not
| know the mechanics.
| piyh wrote:
| Voluntary white noise is the bottom of the adverse
| environmental factors list I'm worried about.
| Weryj wrote:
| When are we going to start crossing things off that list.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I use a non-looping white/brown noise machine to help me sleep at
| night and it works wonders in the city.
|
| One thing I've wondered is the health effects of listening to
| that noise at ~ 40db all night over all these years. OSHA says
| that anything under ~ 80db is safe for 8h, but I do wonder if
| there are any longer term impacts to hearing or audio processing
| for softer sounds played over a lifetime. I could easily see the
| brain adapting and 'ignoring' noise in that spectrum. For now, I
| simply consider the extra sleep I get to be worth the price.
| musicjohn wrote:
| Interesting, could it be possible to elaborate which listening
| device you are using?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| What's the effect size?
| sul_tasto wrote:
| can anyone comment on binaural beats and the claim that they can
| be used to manipulate brain activity- such as promoting focus or
| relaxation?
| xtiansimon wrote:
| How about some space noise?
| https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia079...
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| This is genuinely creepy sounding. It might be less creepy if
| they didn't compress the time so much
| antattack wrote:
| "we tested the hypothesis that auditory white noise, when
| presented during the encoding of scene images, enhances
| subsequent recognition memory performance and modulates activity
| within the dopaminergic midbrain"
|
| Important highlight is that primary task (of remembering images)
| did not use (or need to use) auditory sense.
| abnry wrote:
| Amusingly, I initially thought this was deep learning related,
| where if you augment your training set by adding white noise to
| each sample, then your trained NN will be more robust.
| tines wrote:
| Possibly the same reason why people like to listen to music while
| working? The essential feature common to white noise and music
| you're familiar with could be the predictability. I know for me a
| good song (uptempo, not too distracting) can help me block out
| the outside world and make me feel very productive.
| avgDev wrote:
| 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.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Try ambient music.
|
| Space music (a sub genre) is my favourite.
| politelemon wrote:
| The lofi hiphop (aka lofi girl) radio station on YouTube is
| another example of non-distracting music. It's there, but not
| something that draws attention.
| hahajk wrote:
| Same with me, the music I normally like distracts me while I
| work. To fix it I open up a youtube tab with a "cafe sounds"
| loop running (while also playing my music). Then it sounds
| like there's some nice music playing somewhere in the
| distance but I can't make it out. I also open up a "train
| sound" loop, which really dials in my focus.
|
| It's a bit of a cacophony, but it got me through grad school!
| zone411 wrote:
| There are many genres of electronic music and only some are
| dance-oriented. If you want to check them out, try non-vocal
| playlists on https://www.di.fm/playlists or on YouTube or
| Spotify.
| rbolkey wrote:
| Another option is to listen to music that's in a different
| language. I have a playlist that I affectionately call
| "French Bistro".
| elliekelly wrote:
| I listen to the "radio" soundtrack from The Sims for the
| same reason. The songs have lyrics but they're too
| indecipherable to be distracting.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| I've always been confused by people that enjoy white noise. It's
| awful.
|
| Here is a sample from the wikipedia page on white noise :
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWhite...
|
| Does anyone genuinely enjoy listening to that?
|
| On the other hand, even though I don't, I could imagine why
| someone might like Brown noise (sounds almost like the ocean) :
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ABrown...
| carbonguy wrote:
| Not so much a fan of white noise either, but I like brown noise
| so much I wrote my own generator: https://justbrownnoise.com
| plants wrote:
| This is really nice. It sounds a lot like a waterfall or
| whitewater. Very soothing.
| userbinator wrote:
| 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.
| basq wrote:
| 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.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| Do you have a sample you could provide?
| naasking wrote:
| "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.
| bradford wrote:
| 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.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| But then why choose such a horrible sound to drown out the
| background? Why not something easier on the ear? Personally I
| find the noise so jarring and intolerable I'd be more
| distracted by it (even on a low volume) than whatever
| irritating noises I'm hearing in the background.
| qumpis wrote:
| Well that's your feeling and that's fine. But I'm okay with
| both white and brown noise, don't feel it's jarring. In
| fact, any other kind if noise distracts me
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