I’ve spent most of my life in areas with low noise pollution. The best way I can describe the experience is that relevant ambient sounds build an understanding of my surroundings like the mini-map in the corner of a video game, which shows all the important events going on within a few hundred yards of the player’s character.
In areas with low noise pollution, that mini-map is beneficial: it takes little to no conscious thought to keep it up to date, and it offers me information that I care about, such as where the people and animals around me are and what they’re doing. The wind makes different sounds when it blows different directions; rain’s various rhythms and drips tell me as much about it as I’d know if I watched it visually; bird songs reveal that the birds think it’s business as usual outside and their absence says that something out there has impressed the birds as being even more interesting than yelling at each other. In an area with few vehicles, it doesn’t take special effort to listen to each one: It’s easy to tell whether it’s light or heavy, gas or diesel, fast or slow, coming or going, traversing the paved road or a gravel driveway. Different people walk in different ways and make different little noises, which the brain starts picking out by itself when given enough good data to pattern match on.
When I visit areas with higher noise pollution, that mini-map gets cluttered with dozens or hundreds of overlapping facts about the environment, to a point where it’s worse than useless and I try to turn it off by overriding it with distracting sounds like music or podcasts. When asking friends who were accustomed the noise why it didn’t bother them, it became clear that some people who spend most of their time in areas with high noise pollution don’t seem to experience that mini-map, or quarter-mile of personal space, that I take for granted when it’s available.
Not surprisingly, blind people also rely on similar sound maps, and are very aware of the acoustics of different surroundings. IIRC some blind people can echo-locate like a bat by making tutting/clicking sounds with their mouths, and listening to the reflection, enabling them to tell when they’re near large objects!
I’ve spent most of my life in areas with low noise pollution. The best way I can describe the experience is that relevant ambient sounds build an understanding of my surroundings like the mini-map in the corner of a video game, which shows all the important events going on within a few hundred yards of the player’s character.
In areas with low noise pollution, that mini-map is beneficial: it takes little to no conscious thought to keep it up to date, and it offers me information that I care about, such as where the people and animals around me are and what they’re doing. The wind makes different sounds when it blows different directions; rain’s various rhythms and drips tell me as much about it as I’d know if I watched it visually; bird songs reveal that the birds think it’s business as usual outside and their absence says that something out there has impressed the birds as being even more interesting than yelling at each other. In an area with few vehicles, it doesn’t take special effort to listen to each one: It’s easy to tell whether it’s light or heavy, gas or diesel, fast or slow, coming or going, traversing the paved road or a gravel driveway. Different people walk in different ways and make different little noises, which the brain starts picking out by itself when given enough good data to pattern match on.
When I visit areas with higher noise pollution, that mini-map gets cluttered with dozens or hundreds of overlapping facts about the environment, to a point where it’s worse than useless and I try to turn it off by overriding it with distracting sounds like music or podcasts. When asking friends who were accustomed the noise why it didn’t bother them, it became clear that some people who spend most of their time in areas with high noise pollution don’t seem to experience that mini-map, or quarter-mile of personal space, that I take for granted when it’s available.
This is the best explanation I’ve ever seen for this phenomenon. I have always had a hard time explaining what it is like to people, so thanks!
Not surprisingly, blind people also rely on similar sound maps, and are very aware of the acoustics of different surroundings. IIRC some blind people can echo-locate like a bat by making tutting/clicking sounds with their mouths, and listening to the reflection, enabling them to tell when they’re near large objects!