"Only 25% of the cell phone users had noticed the clown" | Hacker News Reader

"Only 25% of the cell phone users had noticed the clown"

theness.com

35 pointsMikeCapone18 comments

My theory is that poor sound fidelity makes our brains work in over-drive doing speech recognition on the cell phone. The same patter-recognition circuits are not therefore available to for other work, leaving things undetected.

In particular I find it much easier to talk over skype compared to cell phone.

I wonder if talking on any phone puts you in a disconnected and disembodied world. Conversing on a phone is quite unnatural.

Yes, it does. This is the problem with making phone calls while driving. Even if you use a headset to keep your hands free (as is mandatory in many countries), you are still so distracted that you are almost as likely to cause an accident as you would be if you drive while holding a phone in one hand and far more likely than when you chat with another person driving with you in the car.

That is what the article says. This thread raises the issue of cell phone fidelity vs. skype (or land line etc) fidelity being a factor.

A major factor is the lack of context. When the people conversing are colocated, they share a context and their conversation respects their context. When the people conversing are talking over data pipes, they do not share context and their conversation subsequently does not respect the context.

For example, when I am a passenger in a car, I typically pause the conversation momentarily if the driver is trying to change lanes or exit the freeway. If I'm walking down the street with a friend, I might pause and stare at a clown instead of dumping a constant stream of audio into my friend's ear.

> For example, when I am a passenger in a car, I typically pause the conversation momentarily if the driver is trying to change lanes or exit the freeway. If I'm walking down the street with a friend, I might pause and stare at a clown instead of dumping a constant stream of audio into my friend's ear.

I think you've nailed it there. It's also about expectations. If you're driving and you suddenly stop speaking (because you need more attention on the road for whatever reason), you know your passengers will understand. But if you're speaking on the phone, you know it will appear weird, so you don't do it (at least not as much)

Many people have moderate hearing problems which makes this even worse. They may not even realize they have mild hearing problems because it may not interfere with anything else in their life. Some people supplement what their ears pick up with lip-reading and other contextual clues to fill in the gaps. Those forms of input don't exist over the phone. This causes phone calls to be something that requires quite high levels of concentration to really follow.

I'd like to see more studies related to increased attentiveness while listening to music. All through high school I played tetris on my calculator during class. I swear I could absorb more information while playing tetris than while not playing tetris.

The only explanation I could ever imagine is that a small part of my mind was tied up thinking about the game, so I was less prone to day dream while playing. However, I had played so much that I didn't really have to think about it any more, so enough of my brain was free to process what the teacher was saying.

This study indicates that something similar is going on while listening to music. I think this could be a powerful discovery.

I remember reading a study done about doodlers and their retention rates. The study found that people who doodle when listening had a higher retention rate of the information. I cannot remember where I read it so I don't know how rigorous the study was though. But this seems in line with your anecdotal evidence.

There is currently an advertising campaign using the 'BasketBall Demonstration' running in London to make people more aware of cyclists while driving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

Even though I knew what I was looking for, I didn't see the bear the first time! (I was still trying to keep track of the passes.) I find I tend to be good at tuning out distractions when I'm reading or making something (either physically or on the computer). I wonder if people who see the bear/gorilla are more easily distracted than those who miss it.

I often find listening to music while I work increases my focus and productivity.

Have they done comparison of attention with phone held up to ear and hands free? Seems like hands free can simulate talking to a passenger, which is shown to not be as distracting. But I'm thinking the distraction from a phone may come from the anxiety of knowing you have to a) hang up, b) don't want to keep the person on the other line waiting so you attend to them more.

From the article : The problem does not derive from using a hand to hold the phone, but the diversion of attention to the conversation.

Which doesn't necessarily contradict with the high score of the conversing couple. I think that they have a wider peripheral field than one person and they will pick up visual clues from one another - glancing &c. - where the person glancing (or whatever) perhaps didn't even notice.

Music has been found to have some deleterious effects on productivity.

via Eliezer Yudkowsky, since I can't find the study itself right now: "I don't listen to music while working, because of studies showing that, e.g., programmers listening to music are equally competent at implementing a given algorithm, but much less likely to notice that the algorithm's output is always equal to its input."

http://lesswrong.com/lw/16d/working_mantras/

Actually I'd like to add that this only works if I'm in the mood for it. But I feel the reason it increases productivity is because it keeps myself from thinking and finding other distracting things to do. The music I guess is a less distracting distraction. Obviously it may have varying effects depending on the person, and I have no doubt that for a person who has no problem focusing, music, unless classical, would probably have a deleterious effect.

I would be very curious to know whether listening to music has less distracting effects as listening to say, NPR for instance. Also, whether music with lyrics is more distracting than music without lyrics. In other words, does the distraction increase the closer you get to "conversation".

I suspect music with lyrics affects a different part of your brain than conversation. Especially if it's music you're familiar with (ie: you're probably not actively interpreting the lyrics).

On a related note, people who stutter can often sing perfectly fine.

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