Do you know of any way of figuring out if binaural beats actually have a stronger effect than just listening to random ambient noise? The idea’s cute, but last I looked at it, there wasn’t much research confirming the brainwave entrainment effect.
The studies were of different things… sorry, I thought I was linking to a study and replication. Binaural beats don’t replace propofol for the induction of anesthesia, but they can help lower the heart rate in such a way that less fentanyl is needed to maintain heard rate/blood pressure within norms of baseline.
The replication of this study found the same effect, though not quite as strongly.
Do you have any recommendations for a currently commercially available (or freely available) source of binaural beats? I experimented with a binaural beat “mind machine” years ago, and saw no significant results, but still find the idea fascinating.
SBaGen is free software, and should come with various waveform scripts you can experiment with.
I don’t know of any recommendations for a particular binaural track or waveform parameter set that would have been somehow verified to cause a specific mental response better than other types of tracks.
I’d love to see some blind testing of this brainwave stuff to see whether it’s more than placebo.
Doesn’t seem too hard to do. Just do a blind comparison of genuine binaural beats carefully crafted to induce a state of concentration or whatever, and random noise or misadjusted binaural beats. It probably requires two people though, the tester and someone other than the tester to create the audio files and give them to the tester without telling them which is which. The tester should preferably be a binaural beats virgin—they should never have heard binaural beats before.
Something along the lines of the above would probably work, but I haven’t thought about the experimental protocol in detail. If someone actually goes ahead with this, obviously they’re gonna have to flesh it out and agree on a more precise protocol.
Personally, I couldn’t be the tester because I’ve listened to binaural beats before and might recognize them. I might be able to be the fake audio file creator, but I’d have to look into it more to make sure I can create something that doesn’t accidentally have binaural beats in it, etc.
Seconding methylphenidate for #2, and (specifically) delta-wave-inducing binaural beats for #3.
I’ve heard good things about weed + Adderall for creative production, but never tried it.
Do you know of any way of figuring out if binaural beats actually have a stronger effect than just listening to random ambient noise? The idea’s cute, but last I looked at it, there wasn’t much research confirming the brainwave entrainment effect.
A binaural beat converted to mono sounds like a good control. I do plan to test this sometime soon.
Binaural beats as a partial replacement for surgical fentanyl:
http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/content/98/2/533.long
http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/content/97/3/772.long
That is interesting, thanks.
So it looks like a bit inconclusive for now. One publication reported an effect, the other study didn’t find anything.
The studies were of different things… sorry, I thought I was linking to a study and replication. Binaural beats don’t replace propofol for the induction of anesthesia, but they can help lower the heart rate in such a way that less fentanyl is needed to maintain heard rate/blood pressure within norms of baseline.
The replication of this study found the same effect, though not quite as strongly.
Do you have any recommendations for a currently commercially available (or freely available) source of binaural beats? I experimented with a binaural beat “mind machine” years ago, and saw no significant results, but still find the idea fascinating.
SBaGen is free software, and should come with various waveform scripts you can experiment with.
I don’t know of any recommendations for a particular binaural track or waveform parameter set that would have been somehow verified to cause a specific mental response better than other types of tracks.
I’d love to see some blind testing of this brainwave stuff to see whether it’s more than placebo.
Doesn’t seem too hard to do. Just do a blind comparison of genuine binaural beats carefully crafted to induce a state of concentration or whatever, and random noise or misadjusted binaural beats. It probably requires two people though, the tester and someone other than the tester to create the audio files and give them to the tester without telling them which is which. The tester should preferably be a binaural beats virgin—they should never have heard binaural beats before.
Something along the lines of the above would probably work, but I haven’t thought about the experimental protocol in detail. If someone actually goes ahead with this, obviously they’re gonna have to flesh it out and agree on a more precise protocol.
Personally, I couldn’t be the tester because I’ve listened to binaural beats before and might recognize them. I might be able to be the fake audio file creator, but I’d have to look into it more to make sure I can create something that doesn’t accidentally have binaural beats in it, etc.