liniment frederik: Is hearing more important than seeing?

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Is hearing more important than seeing?

Mark Changizi, contributor

In The Universal Sense, Seth Horowitz makes a compelling case for our most underrated sense

WOULD you rather be blind or deaf? You would probably quickly and fervently answer that you'd rather be deaf, if you really had to choose. Vision is too dear to most people. Hearing on the other hand... well, it's boring.

This is a misconception that neuroscientist Seth Horowitz knocks down in The Universal Sense, in which he sings the praises of this underrated sense.

The most frequent argument for hearing's importance to humans is that it is fundamental to our most valued talents and pastimes - speech and music. That justification, however, is problematic. The sensation of hearing is universal among vertebrates, but the use of it for speech and music is uniquely human. What else, then, does hearing offer?

Horowitz shows that there's so much more. Taking examples from the animal kingdom, he explains how hearing connects creatures to all the world's good vibrations. From blackboard scrapes to bats that can hear sounds mere nanometres long, he leads us on a canal tour through the ear. Though the book reads a little like a sequence of field trips, Horowitz recounts fascinating anecdotes of how hearing can tell us a great deal about the world - whether or not we are paying attention.

Take, for example, Horowitz's scenario of going to wash your hands. "You'll probably think of the water splashing in the sink and that's about it," he begins. Then he introduces the possible signals we unconsciously glean, showing us how hearing adds richness and context to our surroundings: "Pay attention to all the sounds. The sound of your footsteps, whether shod in slippers or socks, padding toward the sink. Did you walk on tile? Is your kitchen echoing with each footstep or are you wearing something soft and absorbent that damps it? When you reach for the faucet handle, do your clothes make a quiet shushing sound? Does the handle squeak a bit?"

It wasn't until I strayed from researching vision into the realms of hearing that I fully appreciated this subtle and fundamental sense. Horowitz's book, filled with thought-provoking passages and interesting tidbits, will help everyone better see what they hear. I suspect that, like me, Horowitz might prefer to be blind than deaf.