An Illusion of Sound

OK, now when ergoproxy told me that he had found a video of an audio illusion, I found myself weirded into silence. You know, “video is seeing as audio is hearing”. However, he HAS told me of more improbable things, so I checked it out. Turns out that the video part is just a black screen and of course, the audio is the gist of it. For the experience to be successful, we must set some things straight first: I cannot tell you how this works because it will probably make you so attentive that the illusion will fail (ergoproxy had explained a bit of it to me and my being a physicist, the illusion worked only the 3rd time I tried it).

Secondly, you have to do it right; let the video load completely before you play it. After it has loaded, try to relax and clear your head (better avoid a distracting environment, i.e. noises, people talking etc.). Then play the video and just listen to the sounds. After it ends, quickly press the replay button and keep listening. Repeat a third time. You should notice the pitch of the sounds increasing continuously. After you have done that, let your ears (and mind) rest for a while. Then, listen to the audio again but this time around, include roughly 1 minute intervals between hearings. Do you notice anything different? [Leave your comments if you like and in approximately 4-5 days, we will post a new text which explains the effect, as well as a video elaborating on the causes, well beyond our meager knowledge].


Speedgrapher