Autism & Noise

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I'm wondering if it's possible that our sensitivity to sound is caused by hyper-sensitivity to the sound wave itself.

This is how I see a study on the subject done:

You get a group of people with Autism and a control group.

Expose each person to various noises at all kinds of levels and monitor their brain activity.

Then you block them from hearing the noise, but you subject them to it again and see how the brain scans compare.

How could I get that study done? Does anybody think it make sense?

The reason I am thinking this is not only because of sounds that make me physically distressed, but because there are sounds that literally massage my spine and super relax me. I have some of them on a playlist and play them while I'm going to sleep. IF I take my shirt off and put my back to the speaker, the spine massage is more intense.

Well, some wave lengths are percieved as sound, some as light, some as vibration, etc. Different senses pick up different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. There is also usually some degree of synaesthesia, for example feeling the vibration of ceartain sounds, and for some people the senses overlap even more.

Therefore I do think that some people would feel uncomfortable by just feeling some frequencies, without hearing them, but it might not necessarily be the same frequencies that cause discomfort when heard.

I, for one, often get chestpains from standing too close to the monitors (speakers) at big concerts, because of the bass frequencies, even though they won't necessarily hurt my ears.

Also the seven notes of the C major scale are supposed to vibrate with the seven chakras of the kundalini, if you belive in that kind of stuff. Every piece of matter/light/wave/whatever has its own specific frequency, and if exposed to the same frequency from an outer source its vibration will increase. This might for example result in some frequencies causing comfort/discomfort in certain parts of the body.

I don't know who to ask to get those kinds of tests done, but I think the topic is very interesting.

I am confused about your theory....whether the sensitivity is auditory or tactile/proprioceptive, the sensitivity is to the sound wave itself.

You'd basically be comparing auditory vs. tactile/proprioceptive (whatever sensory channels allow you to feel the vibration) processing of sound, yes?

What would you be looking for?

This whole area of study of noise and response in people is really in it's infancy. For instance the impact of music on psychological response. The general consensus is it's related to auditory processing in the brain.

My daughter (and many others on the spectrum) is very sensitive to certain noises. After getting her checked by specialists we could quickly discount that she had damage to her ears and her hearing was very normal. This meant her auditory parts of the brain were not properly processing certain frequencies that were of a specific wavelength or pitch (helicopter blades, power drills and on the opposite spectrum sneezing and coughing).

The word your looking for is "resonance".

Yes, thanks for saying it more clearly than I did.
But not only between the channels, but between people with Autism and people without Autism.

Sound is actually different than the electromagnetic spectrum. Sound waves are vibrations through the air, water, or any other substance that has mass. So since it's vibration, we can sometimes feel it, not just hear it, so I don't think that synesthesia is the answer here, or at least not all the answer.

This is a very tricky study. Would the question really be which senses you are more sensitive in? Also, would you only test the frequencies that people could perceive through the sense of touch? Or can we actually "feel" all the same frequencies that we can also hear?

Oh, I forgot that part. Although isn't "sound" what we get when our ears pick up the resonance of an electromagnetic wave going through one of these substances, and therefore the origin of sound, but not sound itself, is electromagnetic in nature?

Also couldn't it be concidered a form of synesthesia since the same phenomenon affects both hearing and tactility/proprioception at the same time, even though it's the normal response?



Also, I belive this to be true.

If you would have been hit by a branch, it wouldn't matter if the shape, size, structure or speed caused you pain, cuz the result would be still the same, knockout or dead. I couldn't image that the shape of the bumper would be that important if you'd have been run over by a car at 100km/h.

I've been reading up on this - had no idea that sound waves could actually be so strong that they could kill - the military has been looking into uses for it.

So it's clear that the waves can penetrate and affect other parts of the body besides the ear. I guess that's probably obvious, I had just never considered it until a few days ago.

But even so, one would have to guess that most of the noises that we hear on a daily basis aren't strong enough to damage your organs (besides your ear) - I'm not asking about noise beyond what we would normally hear. So from a whisper to maybe a jack hammer.

The questions are - for a group of Autistic people and a group of non Autistic people:

Do people"hear" everyday level noises with organs other than our ears? Can the sound wave go directly to the kidney or liver or spine and cause a reaction?

Or can it only go through the ear, which then sends signals to the brain causing our bodily reactions?

And how do these reactions vary between Autistics and Non-Autistics?

I would say yes, the sound can resonate with a certain part of the body, making it vibrate (and this vibration will be felt if strong enough). This is also how those weapons work. If you find the right frequency and "play" it loud enough the target will vibrate so violently that it breaks. This is also what is behind the story of the opera singer being able to break glass. (Not saying an opera singer can actually do it, but an oscillator generating a loud, steady frequency definately can!)



Certain sounds (or combination of sounds, as in music for example), when heard through the ears and processed in the brain, can affect us emotionally, and emotions can affect us physically (although that takes quite som time). This might be a little more farfetched, but not impossible.



This would, to me, be the most interesting part of the study. If someone has auditory hypersensitivity, would they also be more sensitive to the tactile sensation of the vibrations in the body? And would hypertactility make you (auditorily) sensitive to certain sounds as a defense mechanism warning you to stay away from those frequencies?

I feel that other senses are distracting or can overlap.

The experiment would practically have to take place in a sensory deprivation chamber, imho.

Another interesting factor is the timing. In other words, can someone report not hearing a tune, or a sequence of numbers, if you put them on the spot. But, could they remember it, later?

Deaf people reported being able to "hear" through their teeth, when biting a tobacco pipe.

And some experiments were performed with a low-impedance greeting card speaker, taped to the skin. It supposedly sounded like white noise, at first.



This is getting into paranormalism, but I believe it is true.



That experiment could be performed, out of hearing range, or with plugged ears, imho, but it would be politically incorrect to the scientific mainstream.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to get at.

friedmacguffins - I'm not asking anything about paranormal or anything that would be politically incorrect - it's just about the physics of sound waves on the human body - do Autistic people feel the sound waves more keenly with their entire bodies than non-Autistics do, and could that be the cause of our sound sensitivities?

I'm curious about why you would consider a sound wave affecting a kidney to be paranormal? It's just one physical thing reacting with another (I think). I don't mean that to criticize you, I'm really interested in your thought process, can you elaborate?

This is totally unrelated to my original question - but kind of to the side of it - I keep reading that all these wifi signals all around us are safe (science says), but do we really know that? I'm not saying I think they're dangerous for sure, but heck it seems possible. That doesn't stop me from having wifi in my apt though! It's all around us anyway, it would be hopeless to try to evade it. Wouldn't that be wild if we found out that little by little it's degrading our dna and in 10 years the whole human race is wiped out? (Ok, that's more science fiction. )

I wonder if terrorists could figure out a way to change it so it does harm us.

This is why I get yelled at for analyzing stuff too much.

EDit - I forgot to mention, your idea about other senses coming in to play was interesting.

Also the reason our ears hurt when overexposed to audible sound is because the ear drum is made to resonate with those sounds, and this is what allows us to "pick up" sound in the first place, so it might not even be the sound itself that hurts those with auditory hypersensitivity (or those without, if the sound is load enough), but the vibrations in the ear.

You could of course argue that those two are in fact the same thing (frequencies resonating with the human ear drum = audible sound), but that way of seeing it opens up for drawing a paralell between a resonating eardrum and, lets say a resonating kidney. The only difference would then be that one is percieved as sound, while the other might not be (or it might, if it happens to resonate both with the ear drum and the kidney), although both will be felt tactilly/proprioceptively.

No disrespect intended. I think that it's unconventional, but that's what makes it an interesting line of discussion.

Firstly, a Wikipedia entry on noises, triggering body functions and affecting different organs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note

I have researched dissociative states, in an effort to understand and control my own, mental status. In casual terms, someone becomes relaxed and is able to recall things and perform better. This reminded me of the AS.

And, what you are describing sounds very much like a guided visualization, to me.

Sick people and athletes were trying to send commands to their body parts.

Also, there was a rumor of Russian mentalists trying to sabotage chess players with a heart attack.

The idea is that body parts respond to the spoken word.



Thank you.

One person has a surname, equivalent to mine, and he famously used unusual, sensory cues as memory aids.

Can they also be used to perform other feats.

I contacted a debunker, to be witnessed under laboratory conditions. I did it for the sake of curiosity, not for the prize money. He called me up in person, and mainly cussed at me.

So, I am trying to be respectful of both sides of the discussion.