Binural Beats

[DrX512]

Lately, people whom I know have been telling me that there is something called a Binural Beat. A binural beat is any regular tone, but when played in stereo, one channel is a few Hz off as to create a Alpha, Beta, Theta or Delta tone. These tones induce different brain waves and all sorts of things which go with it. I personally think this is bull.

The website which all of my friends send me to for "scientific proof" is here (http://www.rainfall.com/cdroms/brainwave.htm). Apparantly, none of them realized that this website is trying to sell them a product, which is the reason it uses jargon and technical ideas which dont quite add up.

Honestly, I cannot believe any of this. Perhaps there are different states of mind labelled Alpha, Beta, Theta and Delta. Though as far as I am concerned, this was just an elaborate ploy. There has been no documented proof of such a phenomenon happening which is reliable and even available for me to find. So why should I believe it? They all claim that "It works so great! I was able to read four times as fast with almost complete comprehension" and "The Delta noise let me sleep for only two hours and it felt like twenty!" This does not seem like proof to me. For one, there is bias in the fact that these claims are annonymous due to them being over the internet. Secondly, the power of suggestion and placebo go a very long way in convincing the "Open Minded" people. I say that because when it does not work on me or others whom I have asked to listen to the sounds without telling them the supposed effects, they call me "Close Minded" in defense

Even the definition of the tones is flawed in a sense that it could not possibly be true. By having a difference of below 3.5 Hz, it would induce a deep, dreamless sleep. How could this possibly be true if there is no way for our ears to detect such a minute difference? There simply are not enough cilia inside of our inner ears to note the difference. Possibly a dog could, but a human's hearing could not be up to the task. Also, how often do you hear a sound more loudly in one ear than in another? Very often. This itself disproves all of these sounds because when you are hearing one sound in one ear and a different sound in another, then that should induce a certain state of mind if this conjecture were to be true.

Besides, this is promoted by a website that advocates psychics, psi. out of body experiences and others. Why the heck would I believe them then?

[BPScooter]

OK, something I know a bit about.

"Binaural" is the term I know, meaning coming through two ears.

"Beats" are a wave phenomenon, based on the reinforcing or damping effects of two waveforms on one another. If you put two waves, of exactly the same frequency (Hz or cycles per second) and play around with their phase, you can get a "double big" wave if they are in phase, or a zero wave if they cancel each other out. This is based on math, do it on paper and see, that a sine wave does act this way. When the frequencies vary by a number of Hz, then the cancelling/reinforcing becomes grosser and more audible, that is the number of "beats" per second. So f1-f2 = fb. Play a 440 and a 439, you will get one beat per second. This is how piano tuners work, by counting beats to create the desired interval.

When they invented headphones, someone tried playing 2 slightly different frequencies in two ears. Lo and behold, there was a clear, undeniable "beat" that was perceived. Try it yourself, you'll hear it. Given bone conduction, etc., it is still a real perceptual thing. Like an optical illusion. The current term is "psychoacoustics" and the current explanation is that the integrative work of the brain is such that it adds these, during perception and cognition, when the stimulus does not contain them.

It is even better... you can get binaural "sum and difference" tones! If you play tones in either ear that constitute the interval of a third, you will hear a resonace, a creepy tone, that is very low. f1-f2. 495-440=55. Tartini discovered this on violin, and they still call them "Tartini tones." This is available binaurally, so it is psychoacoustic, rather than simply acoustic.

Now, might I say that if there are healing powers inherent in this, or any other claim, then this claim is testable. If listening to Mozart makes you smarter (and you know any Mozart experts), and if passive exposure to beats and difference tones does anything, we have fine fodder for testing. Let's go for it.