September 29, 2025 • 15 mins
You have probably heard of white noise, but there are a variety of noise patterns that have been assigned a color. Some have proposed hypothetical benefits of these various sound patterns ranging from sleep or focus to mental health conditions. We take a scalpel and scientifically remove the fluff. Tell us what colored sounds you prefer!
Links and References:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Support our podcast: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
Links and References:
- https://www.edweek.org/leadership/brown-white-pink-what-different-colors-of-noise-mean-and-how-they-can-help-learning/2023/11#:~:text=What%20about%20other%20colors%20of,can%20do%2C%E2%80%9D%20Berlau%20said.
- https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/colored-sleep-noise/#:~:text=What%20color%20noise%20is%20best,works%20best%20for%20you.%E2%80%8B
- https://www.bettersleep.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-colored-noise-exploring-the-sound-spectrum-in-colors
- https://youtu.be/auCj6O9DRbs?si=DZxd5k4Hf5JwOX1O
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Support our podcast: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
to Why we do what we do Mini. I am
your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
(00:25):
and non human animals do, and sometimes we talk about
the ideas we have about crossing the streams, which is
to say, sensations.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, that's how we describe it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Usually when we talk about the way we feel on sensations,
it's yeah, it's crossing the streams, obviously.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
And this is a mini This is a short dive
into a topic. We release these on Mondays. We touch
base on this thing and then we get out of
there in a quick, short amount of time. There's a
lot of redundant adjectives and descriptions.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
But that it's the opposite of what you just did,
yeah or rapid.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
This is a long description of a short thing. If
you are joining us for the first time, then welcome.
We are so happy to have you here. If you're
a returning person, then welcome back. We're so happy that
you're back. And either way, we appreciate appreciated listeners. We
hope that you enjoy what you hear and if you
would like to support us. There's a few ways you
can do that. You can leave us a rating and review,
(01:23):
like subscribe, tell a friend, join us on Patreon, pick
up some murch. I'll talk more about that a little
bit at the end of this discussion, but we need
to jump into this because it's supposed to be mini
Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Let's do it all right.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We have talked about sinnesthesia in the past, and this
is not that. This is not a many on synesthesia. Instead,
what we're talking about is this idea of colored noise.
And what I mean by that is there are these
noise patterns people apply the color to a sort of
a sensation. So colored noises consist of several different sound
(01:55):
patterns and then a color that people have attributed to
that pattern arbitrarily, Like there's really nothing about this that
indicates why that color would belong to that pattern. Sure, implicitly,
but I think maybe intuitively you'll hear these and you'll
be able to connect the dots in a way that
feels like it makes sense. Yeah, but that's just what
(02:17):
this is. That's just their noise patterns, and people call
those noise patterns a color name.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So if you're familiar with white noise, and here's an example,
get off my law let me talk to your manager.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Wow, that was good. That was very funny.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I thought you'd like that. Here's an example.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Then you already have it a decent idea of what
other colored noises are. You've probably got an experience with
green noise, brown noise, stuff like that, which we'll talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
These largely claim to help with something that's going on
with you, like they're supposed to have some attribute relative
to your biology and psychology. They claim to help with sleep, relaxation,
or focus. But of course some will even go as
far as to claim that they'll treat physical and psychological
health issues.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah. Interesting, I love noise treatment. It's great.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
The high number we found was seven different color noise profiles, white, brown, green, pink, blue, violet,
and gray, each with quote unquote distinctive ish sound patterns.
And so you know you can kind of hear them
in maybe pick out those colors.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, particularly if we tell you what they are first.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, So the language of colors, the idea of using
these colors to name these sound patterns is supposed to
help them be memorable, just so you could like attribute
this pattern and say, oh, that's that color, because it
gives it a name of some sort, and I guess
it conjures some other sort of experiences being a soci
with the color that we would have familiarity with those
(04:03):
of us who do not have vision impairment that prevents
that sort of thing. But metaphorically it aligns a little
bit with this idea of like a rainbow, right, and
this ties the idea to nature, at least in an extent,
So it sort of implies that these are sound patterns
that are maybe attributable to sound patterns of nature, and
(04:23):
the particular nature they're associated with then can have a
color that we would recognize.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Sure, so white noise besides what I the example that
we gave earlier is equal distribution of sound across all frequencies.
It is a sound of TV static and also has
been described as fuzzy.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, kind of a hiss type sound or.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Like a hum. I could seem like a little bit
of a homia.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Sure, sure, it's got this like a very shit. So anyway,
so that's white noise. Pink noise is another one, as
we mentioned and this has greater amplitude at lower frequencies,
meaning that the lower frequency these sounds are louder. But
then the frequencies decrease with volume as it goes to
the higher frequencies. So it starts with the loudest ones
(05:07):
are the lowest, and as it goes toward the top
you get quieter and quieter presentation of the higher frequency.
So you still get pretty much the entire range of
frequencies that we would hear, but the volume is pushed
at the lowest end of it.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Does that make sense, Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So this has been compared to leaves rustling, the hum
of an airplane cabin, a steady rain on a metallic roof,
And this one claims to improve your memory.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
So there's that super interesting. Next, we've got brown noise.
It's pretty much all low frequencies and few are no
higher frequencies. This is compared to like rolling thunder in
the distance, a cat purring, a crackling fire. Some also
claims this supports focus and increased attention span. But more importantly,
we have a really good example of brown noise right now,
(05:55):
and it is an ad.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
All right, we're back from that break. The ad noise.
So the next color here we have is green noise. Now,
this amplifies only the middle ranges of the frequencies in
the sort of the frequency spectrum. This one is compared
to rolling waves, driving noises, which stress than her plane cabin,
and heavy rainfall. I'm okay with they have a rainfall
(06:25):
and rolling waves, but driving noises no. Thank you? Sure
for me, maybe for the people. That's very soothing. This
impressively claims to soothe symptoms of ADHD. Wow, amazing and
help you feel both relaxed and focused at the same time.
The true cocaine of colored sound as green noise.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Like you're not necessarily grinding your teeth, but you do
want to talk a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
So there's blue noise, which is the opposite of brown
noise and focuses only on amplifying high sound frequencies and
using few or no lower frequencies. This is compared to
a hissing hose, which is just a snake, a computer fan,
or steam escaping a pipe.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
This supposedly increases alertness.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
We'll get to book about Back to that sure violet
slash purple noise. I saw both. This is even more
extreme blue noise. It contains tight traded amounts of the
highest amplification at the highest frequencies and no low frequencies
at all, as compared to a high pitch hiss or
sizzle the running of a sink faucet. And this is
(07:33):
specifically touted as supporting a wakeness and being a good
mask for tinadous for people who have tenatus, such as myself.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Interesting, well, that's good to know. So you can just
listen to violet noise and then grain noise is supposedly
more smoothed out white noise with even distribution across frequencies. However,
we experience different pitches as louder than others, even when
they are technically at the same volume. So grain noise
has an acoustic sound curve applied to even out the
perception of different frequencies so that it creates a less
(08:05):
intensive sound experience. You know what's funny is like with
white noise and gray noise. You know what it makes
me think of is like I just want to listen
to see your rose.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Okay, very nice. I don't know, because that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
One album, the one album with the parentheses album is
like all white and gray.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So like I think, I guess I think of that.
It's my own relational frame, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
But yeah, the whole idea with the gray noise is
just that because with white noise, some pitches, even though
they're at the same technical loudness, they sound louder because
that pitch just sounds loud to us. And so when
they even them all out, if you listen to gray noise,
it does have a very even sound even though encompasses
all frequencies. The volume of the frequencies is curved to
(08:45):
make them all sound even, and it has a less
abrasive sound than white noise. Sure, so then we have
of course, some people will include things like red and
yellow noise to more clearly map out the color spectrum.
But whatever, I think those just overlap with some of
the other ones that we mentioned. Importantly here is we've
got to ask, then, like we've enumerated what these things are,
what they say that they are, what they're supposed to do,
(09:07):
and sound like, what do you say? Science?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, so we called science and here's what science said.
So science said, to date, there are no systematic studies
that actually show that any of these is better at
promoting sleep, and there is even less reason to believe
that any one of them do anything to improve our
focus or mental health conditions. And we say, like systematic studies,
I think it's really important to know that there's no
evidence on that level.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, yeah, nothing that really says convincingly that these do
anything remotely like what they say that they do in
the extent to which they accomplish anything at all. It
is that sounds are loud and varied enough to drown
out other sounds, like that's what they do. We listen
to these sounds that become an all encompassing experience in
our immediate circumstance. That makes it harder for our ears
(09:54):
to pick up other sounds because they can't make it
through all that noise. Sure, and that by itself can
help us fall asleep because it's preventing the unexpected like
random cacophony of sounds that might catch our attention and
drowning them with like an ongoing stream of invariable sound,
like sound that doesn't change really and therefore those things
(10:14):
are less likely to catch our attention distract us. And
so there's this variability and external sounds that would otherwise
grab our attention awake or trying to sleep, really, and
that having one unified sort of experience of sound makes
it so those other sounds just can't reach us as easily.
So that's that is largely the way in which this works, right.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And if we're trying to focus, these sounds can also
help drown out distractions around us that might otherwise grab
our attention, And that's really all they do. They are
basically the same as earplugs, except rather than blocking auditory stimulation,
they just overwhelm it. They mask other stimuli that might
be in our environment.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The other consideration is the frequencies themselves. I mean, higher
pitch frequencies tend to be more grading for humans, like
we don't really like those sounds, sure, so it stands
to reason that these might be better at helping some
people stay awake by virtue of the fact that they
are difficult to listen to.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Lower pitch sounds, which we might even have trouble discriminating,
clearly might be less likely to hold our attention and
keep us alert because they're less obnoxious. But that's about it.
That's as much as really makes sense to determine the
extent to which and how these would have the effect
they're supposed to have.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Right, and these sounds also gain some of their effects
through repeated association, so importantly, we can both become dependent
on these or habituate to their effects. If we always
use these sounds to study, playing them may get us
in the mood to study.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And similarly, if we always use them to fall asleep,
we might start to need them to fall asleep, even
in environments where we have no distracting sounds, and we
might have become so dependent on that as an associated
cueue with the onset of sleep, that we kind of
depend on it to help us actually fall asleep comfortably.
Even if you don't have a history with that sound,
it may take a while to develop the effect it's
(12:01):
supposed to have, which does kind of illuminate the fact
that the effect is created. This is not inherent to
the sound themselves. You can kind of use any one
of them to help you fall asleep, and the one
that is successful helping you fall asleep, if you just
keep using it over and over again, it will develop
that queue and association, and maybe some of them they'll
(12:21):
happen faster, because again, some of them are just hard
to listen to, but they can all sort of do
the same thing in an actuality.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Right, we can habituate to the effect that we're trying
to create. However, it is less likely to happen very
organically because, as we mentioned, they simply drown out other sounds.
So artificial associations can fade, but the sheer mechanical auditory
effect will not unless you lose your hearing.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, so that's it. That's how color sounds works and
the extents to which they work those are pretty much
the things.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, it works through conditioning.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, people might tell you it like stimulates your nerve
or tickles your brain or I don't know, massages your aura.
But but what it does is drawn to other sounds
and then has an association with cues of the environment. Yep,
that's it, nail, We did it all right, very good.
If you'd like to tell us your experience with your
favorite colored sounds, we love to hear those things. You
(13:15):
should write in and tell us. You can email us
directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. You can also
reach out to us on the social media platforms, and
we do look forward to hearing from you. If you
liked this show and you would like to hear more
of them, well, then you should subscribe, and then that
way we will always show up in whatever podcast player
you like the most, and then you get to hear
(13:35):
all the wonderful things that we say, because they're all wonderful,
well maybe most of them, some of them.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think they're all right.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, we do all right. And if you like to
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everyone else know how all right we do, and you
do like the show, then we encourage you to leave
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You can support us financially by joining us on Patreon.
(14:05):
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there's a wonderful list of people over there, and we
like to read their names. So you can join that crew.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You should, You should join that crew.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
You should so come to peer pressure and do what
your friends are doing.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
That's right, all the cool kids are doing it, so
you should see.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
That's true. It's like peeing your pants, just like that.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And thank you all for listening. Thank you to my
team of people for helping me make this show. Thank
you for recording with me today Shane on our rare
late Thursday evening. Is there anything that I missed or
that you'd like to add before we wrap this one up?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Not today?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
All right? Then Why We Do What We Do Mini
is out.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You can learn more about this and other episodes.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
By going to WWD WWD podcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Thanks for listening, and we hope you haven't forget
You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
to Why we do what we do Mini. I am
your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are
a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans
(00:25):
and non human animals do, and sometimes we talk about
the ideas we have about crossing the streams, which is
to say, sensations.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, that's how we describe it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Usually when we talk about the way we feel on sensations,
it's yeah, it's crossing the streams, obviously.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
And this is a mini This is a short dive
into a topic. We release these on Mondays. We touch
base on this thing and then we get out of
there in a quick, short amount of time. There's a
lot of redundant adjectives and descriptions.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
But that it's the opposite of what you just did,
yeah or rapid.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
This is a long description of a short thing. If
you are joining us for the first time, then welcome.
We are so happy to have you here. If you're
a returning person, then welcome back. We're so happy that
you're back. And either way, we appreciate appreciated listeners. We
hope that you enjoy what you hear and if you
would like to support us. There's a few ways you
can do that. You can leave us a rating and review,
(01:23):
like subscribe, tell a friend, join us on Patreon, pick
up some murch. I'll talk more about that a little
bit at the end of this discussion, but we need
to jump into this because it's supposed to be mini
Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Let's do it all right.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We have talked about sinnesthesia in the past, and this
is not that. This is not a many on synesthesia. Instead,
what we're talking about is this idea of colored noise.
And what I mean by that is there are these
noise patterns people apply the color to a sort of
a sensation. So colored noises consist of several different sound
(01:55):
patterns and then a color that people have attributed to
that pattern arbitrarily, Like there's really nothing about this that
indicates why that color would belong to that pattern. Sure, implicitly,
but I think maybe intuitively you'll hear these and you'll
be able to connect the dots in a way that
feels like it makes sense. Yeah, but that's just what
(02:17):
this is. That's just their noise patterns, and people call
those noise patterns a color name.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, that's pretty much what it is.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So if you're familiar with white noise, and here's an example,
get off my law let me talk to your manager.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Wow, that was good. That was very funny.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I thought you'd like that. Here's an example.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Then you already have it a decent idea of what
other colored noises are. You've probably got an experience with
green noise, brown noise, stuff like that, which we'll talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
These largely claim to help with something that's going on
with you, like they're supposed to have some attribute relative
to your biology and psychology. They claim to help with sleep, relaxation,
or focus. But of course some will even go as
far as to claim that they'll treat physical and psychological
health issues.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah. Interesting, I love noise treatment. It's great.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
The high number we found was seven different color noise profiles, white, brown, green, pink, blue, violet,
and gray, each with quote unquote distinctive ish sound patterns.
And so you know you can kind of hear them
in maybe pick out those colors.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, particularly if we tell you what they are first.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, So the language of colors, the idea of using
these colors to name these sound patterns is supposed to
help them be memorable, just so you could like attribute
this pattern and say, oh, that's that color, because it
gives it a name of some sort, and I guess
it conjures some other sort of experiences being a soci
with the color that we would have familiarity with those
(04:03):
of us who do not have vision impairment that prevents
that sort of thing. But metaphorically it aligns a little
bit with this idea of like a rainbow, right, and
this ties the idea to nature, at least in an extent,
So it sort of implies that these are sound patterns
that are maybe attributable to sound patterns of nature, and
(04:23):
the particular nature they're associated with then can have a
color that we would recognize.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Sure, so white noise besides what I the example that
we gave earlier is equal distribution of sound across all frequencies.
It is a sound of TV static and also has
been described as fuzzy.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, kind of a hiss type sound or.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Like a hum. I could seem like a little bit
of a homia.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Sure, sure, it's got this like a very shit. So anyway,
so that's white noise. Pink noise is another one, as
we mentioned and this has greater amplitude at lower frequencies,
meaning that the lower frequency these sounds are louder. But
then the frequencies decrease with volume as it goes to
the higher frequencies. So it starts with the loudest ones
(05:07):
are the lowest, and as it goes toward the top
you get quieter and quieter presentation of the higher frequency.
So you still get pretty much the entire range of
frequencies that we would hear, but the volume is pushed
at the lowest end of it.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Does that make sense, Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So this has been compared to leaves rustling, the hum
of an airplane cabin, a steady rain on a metallic roof,
And this one claims to improve your memory.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
So there's that super interesting. Next, we've got brown noise.
It's pretty much all low frequencies and few are no
higher frequencies. This is compared to like rolling thunder in
the distance, a cat purring, a crackling fire. Some also
claims this supports focus and increased attention span. But more importantly,
we have a really good example of brown noise right now,
(05:55):
and it is an ad.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
All right, we're back from that break. The ad noise.
So the next color here we have is green noise. Now,
this amplifies only the middle ranges of the frequencies in
the sort of the frequency spectrum. This one is compared
to rolling waves, driving noises, which stress than her plane cabin,
and heavy rainfall. I'm okay with they have a rainfall
(06:25):
and rolling waves, but driving noises no. Thank you? Sure
for me, maybe for the people. That's very soothing. This
impressively claims to soothe symptoms of ADHD. Wow, amazing and
help you feel both relaxed and focused at the same time.
The true cocaine of colored sound as green noise.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Like you're not necessarily grinding your teeth, but you do
want to talk a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
So there's blue noise, which is the opposite of brown
noise and focuses only on amplifying high sound frequencies and
using few or no lower frequencies. This is compared to
a hissing hose, which is just a snake, a computer fan,
or steam escaping a pipe.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
This supposedly increases alertness.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
We'll get to book about Back to that sure violet
slash purple noise. I saw both. This is even more
extreme blue noise. It contains tight traded amounts of the
highest amplification at the highest frequencies and no low frequencies
at all, as compared to a high pitch hiss or
sizzle the running of a sink faucet. And this is
(07:33):
specifically touted as supporting a wakeness and being a good
mask for tinadous for people who have tenatus, such as myself.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Interesting, well, that's good to know. So you can just
listen to violet noise and then grain noise is supposedly
more smoothed out white noise with even distribution across frequencies. However,
we experience different pitches as louder than others, even when
they are technically at the same volume. So grain noise
has an acoustic sound curve applied to even out the
perception of different frequencies so that it creates a less
(08:05):
intensive sound experience. You know what's funny is like with
white noise and gray noise. You know what it makes
me think of is like I just want to listen
to see your rose.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Okay, very nice. I don't know, because that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
One album, the one album with the parentheses album is
like all white and gray.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So like I think, I guess I think of that.
It's my own relational frame, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
But yeah, the whole idea with the gray noise is
just that because with white noise, some pitches, even though
they're at the same technical loudness, they sound louder because
that pitch just sounds loud to us. And so when
they even them all out, if you listen to gray noise,
it does have a very even sound even though encompasses
all frequencies. The volume of the frequencies is curved to
(08:45):
make them all sound even, and it has a less
abrasive sound than white noise. Sure, so then we have
of course, some people will include things like red and
yellow noise to more clearly map out the color spectrum.
But whatever, I think those just overlap with some of
the other ones that we mentioned. Importantly here is we've
got to ask, then, like we've enumerated what these things are,
what they say that they are, what they're supposed to do,
(09:07):
and sound like, what do you say? Science?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, so we called science and here's what science said.
So science said, to date, there are no systematic studies
that actually show that any of these is better at
promoting sleep, and there is even less reason to believe
that any one of them do anything to improve our
focus or mental health conditions. And we say, like systematic studies,
I think it's really important to know that there's no
evidence on that level.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, yeah, nothing that really says convincingly that these do
anything remotely like what they say that they do in
the extent to which they accomplish anything at all. It
is that sounds are loud and varied enough to drown
out other sounds, like that's what they do. We listen
to these sounds that become an all encompassing experience in
our immediate circumstance. That makes it harder for our ears
(09:54):
to pick up other sounds because they can't make it
through all that noise. Sure, and that by itself can
help us fall asleep because it's preventing the unexpected like
random cacophony of sounds that might catch our attention and
drowning them with like an ongoing stream of invariable sound,
like sound that doesn't change really and therefore those things
(10:14):
are less likely to catch our attention distract us. And
so there's this variability and external sounds that would otherwise
grab our attention awake or trying to sleep, really, and
that having one unified sort of experience of sound makes
it so those other sounds just can't reach us as easily.
So that's that is largely the way in which this works, right.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And if we're trying to focus, these sounds can also
help drown out distractions around us that might otherwise grab
our attention, And that's really all they do. They are
basically the same as earplugs, except rather than blocking auditory stimulation,
they just overwhelm it. They mask other stimuli that might
be in our environment.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The other consideration is the frequencies themselves. I mean, higher
pitch frequencies tend to be more grading for humans, like
we don't really like those sounds, sure, so it stands
to reason that these might be better at helping some
people stay awake by virtue of the fact that they
are difficult to listen to.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Lower pitch sounds, which we might even have trouble discriminating,
clearly might be less likely to hold our attention and
keep us alert because they're less obnoxious. But that's about it.
That's as much as really makes sense to determine the
extent to which and how these would have the effect
they're supposed to have.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Right, and these sounds also gain some of their effects
through repeated association, so importantly, we can both become dependent
on these or habituate to their effects. If we always
use these sounds to study, playing them may get us
in the mood to study.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And similarly, if we always use them to fall asleep,
we might start to need them to fall asleep, even
in environments where we have no distracting sounds, and we
might have become so dependent on that as an associated
cueue with the onset of sleep, that we kind of
depend on it to help us actually fall asleep comfortably.
Even if you don't have a history with that sound,
it may take a while to develop the effect it's
(12:01):
supposed to have, which does kind of illuminate the fact
that the effect is created. This is not inherent to
the sound themselves. You can kind of use any one
of them to help you fall asleep, and the one
that is successful helping you fall asleep, if you just
keep using it over and over again, it will develop
that queue and association, and maybe some of them they'll
(12:21):
happen faster, because again, some of them are just hard
to listen to, but they can all sort of do
the same thing in an actuality.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Right, we can habituate to the effect that we're trying
to create. However, it is less likely to happen very
organically because, as we mentioned, they simply drown out other sounds.
So artificial associations can fade, but the sheer mechanical auditory
effect will not unless you lose your hearing.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, so that's it. That's how color sounds works and
the extents to which they work those are pretty much
the things.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, it works through conditioning.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, people might tell you it like stimulates your nerve
or tickles your brain or I don't know, massages your aura.
But but what it does is drawn to other sounds
and then has an association with cues of the environment. Yep,
that's it, nail, We did it all right, very good.
If you'd like to tell us your experience with your
favorite colored sounds, we love to hear those things. You
(13:15):
should write in and tell us. You can email us
directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. You can also
reach out to us on the social media platforms, and
we do look forward to hearing from you. If you
liked this show and you would like to hear more
of them, well, then you should subscribe, and then that
way we will always show up in whatever podcast player
you like the most, and then you get to hear
(13:35):
all the wonderful things that we say, because they're all wonderful,
well maybe most of them, some of them.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think they're all right.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, we do all right. And if you like to
let us know how all right we do, or let
everyone else know how all right we do, and you
do like the show, then we encourage you to leave
a rating you can click. Those five stars helps us
make it out into people's feeds and be recommended to people,
and that's great. And if you're feeling particularly ambition, you
can also add to that a review, which we do appreciate.
You can support us financially by joining us on Patreon.
(14:05):
You'll get add free content, bonus episodes, early releases, and
I will read your name and a list of people
on our full length discussions when we publish those. And
there's a wonderful list of people over there, and we
like to read their names. So you can join that crew.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You should, You should join that crew.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
You should so come to peer pressure and do what
your friends are doing.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
That's right, all the cool kids are doing it, so
you should see.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
That's true. It's like peeing your pants, just like that.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And thank you all for listening. Thank you to my
team of people for helping me make this show. Thank
you for recording with me today Shane on our rare
late Thursday evening. Is there anything that I missed or
that you'd like to add before we wrap this one up?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Not today?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
All right? Then Why We Do What We Do Mini
is out.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You can learn more about this and other episodes.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
By going to WWD WWD podcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Thanks for listening, and we hope you haven't forget
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