From time to time I hear about people going to their physician when they realise something is off about their body accidentally when someone mentions something that makes them realise they are unusual in some respect. I am then often surprised that these people report the physician saying something along the lines of the phenomenon being well documented and benign.
Personally, I have a couple of tones in my ears for the first two decades of my life without realising that tinnitus is unusual and I do not know what absolute silence is. Ironically, I also have exceptionally great sensitivity to quiet sounds. And, again ironically, I have trouble understanding human speech when there is background noise.
I was surprised when I first moved in with roommates to see how one of them and some of the neighbours were just absolutely noisy. After some inquiry I realised that they are just not as bothered by noise as I am. Oh and apparently they are unable to hear as sensitively as I do.
Further, I hate background music above a certain, quite low, threshhold if I want to maintain a conversation. Other people’s conversations are similarly challenging. These facts do explain quite nicely why so many people like clubs, bars or pubs but I do not.
There are plenty of these little things and it maddens me every time I see psychological studies or policy assuming homogenity in the human population. We are different in so many often quantifiable ways. I am not sure yet of the practical use of these little facts but I am sure there is.
I once had a long argument with a group of friends about why vision was more interesting than sound. Turns out all the ones who sided with vision could differentiate between far more colors.
This seems like it would be easy to test. What is the relevant literature to design a suitable experiment for this?
Similar to the other case, I would like to test for a correlation between enjoyment of music and this. I am not sure what the practical use of this data is but I am interested in it anyway.
From user “St. Rev”
I can’t smell jasmine. I didn’t discover this until I was in my thirties and someone handed me a twig of jasmine flowers. My sense of smell is otherwise better than normal.
From user “Alicorn”
I’m a little bit faceblind (but not as bad as some people, like Leah).
From user “lmm”
This makes me wonder whether there are people who actually get emotionally affected by art, in the same way as I do with music. I enjoy art on an intellectual level, but I’ve never looked at a painting and had it make me feel sad or transcendent or any of the reactions people tend to talk about.
Reading these I wonder about how these discrepancies arise. Are they usually genetic in nature as in that some genetic factor determines certain neurological structures or are they the result of some environmental factor too? The jasmin example sounds more like a defective connection between the brain and receptors in the nose. Then again, only some part of the population is able to smell some metabolic product of asparagus in urine and we know this is a single gene mutation. The faceblind example sounds like some environmental factor being absent such as plenty of faces. The art experience thing I don’t know.
Do high IQ people have more of these unusual structures? In my experience more intelligent people report such strange stuff more often and/or are able to empathise with me more. Then again, it could be that intelligent people in general are just more aware of these things and such more considerate.
Anyway I am very happy to see that other people have plenty of these little stuffs and I am not alone in this. I am very happy to be able to participate in this community.
Jasmine, especially the bulbs have a strange, sickly unpleasant smell for me (similar to some of the smells in old toilet rooms, maybe—not the urine part, more like a mushy, fungus smell). I could never find any mention of other people having the same perception.
I have trouble understanding human speech when there is background noise.
Me too! I learned that there’s a gene related to oxytocin receptors, Rs53576, that affects auditory processing. Those with G;G are optimistic and empathetic, handle stress well, and are good at understanding speech in noisy environments, while the other genotypes don’t possess those qualities.
(Please note that this information comes from only a few studies, and should be taken with skepticism for publication bias and other errors. And of course even if it’s correct, there could be plenty of other reasons to have difficulty understanding speech in background noise other than this particular gene.)
From time to time I hear about people going to their physician when they realise something is off about their body accidentally when someone mentions something that makes them realise they are unusual in some respect. I am then often surprised that these people report the physician saying something along the lines of the phenomenon being well documented and benign.
Personally, I have a couple of tones in my ears for the first two decades of my life without realising that tinnitus is unusual and I do not know what absolute silence is. Ironically, I also have exceptionally great sensitivity to quiet sounds. And, again ironically, I have trouble understanding human speech when there is background noise.
I was surprised when I first moved in with roommates to see how one of them and some of the neighbours were just absolutely noisy. After some inquiry I realised that they are just not as bothered by noise as I am. Oh and apparently they are unable to hear as sensitively as I do.
Further, I hate background music above a certain, quite low, threshhold if I want to maintain a conversation. Other people’s conversations are similarly challenging. These facts do explain quite nicely why so many people like clubs, bars or pubs but I do not.
There are plenty of these little things and it maddens me every time I see psychological studies or policy assuming homogenity in the human population. We are different in so many often quantifiable ways. I am not sure yet of the practical use of these little facts but I am sure there is.
Now that I have read all the comments on the linked blog post I have some thoughts to share that I want to have judged seperately.
This seems like it would be easy to test. What is the relevant literature to design a suitable experiment for this?
Similar to the other case, I would like to test for a correlation between enjoyment of music and this. I am not sure what the practical use of this data is but I am interested in it anyway.
Reading these I wonder about how these discrepancies arise. Are they usually genetic in nature as in that some genetic factor determines certain neurological structures or are they the result of some environmental factor too? The jasmin example sounds more like a defective connection between the brain and receptors in the nose. Then again, only some part of the population is able to smell some metabolic product of asparagus in urine and we know this is a single gene mutation. The faceblind example sounds like some environmental factor being absent such as plenty of faces. The art experience thing I don’t know.
Do high IQ people have more of these unusual structures? In my experience more intelligent people report such strange stuff more often and/or are able to empathise with me more. Then again, it could be that intelligent people in general are just more aware of these things and such more considerate.
Anyway I am very happy to see that other people have plenty of these little stuffs and I am not alone in this. I am very happy to be able to participate in this community.
Perhaps high IQ people are better at describing them?
Jasmine, especially the bulbs have a strange, sickly unpleasant smell for me (similar to some of the smells in old toilet rooms, maybe—not the urine part, more like a mushy, fungus smell). I could never find any mention of other people having the same perception.
Me too! I learned that there’s a gene related to oxytocin receptors, Rs53576, that affects auditory processing. Those with G;G are optimistic and empathetic, handle stress well, and are good at understanding speech in noisy environments, while the other genotypes don’t possess those qualities.
(Please note that this information comes from only a few studies, and should be taken with skepticism for publication bias and other errors. And of course even if it’s correct, there could be plenty of other reasons to have difficulty understanding speech in background noise other than this particular gene.)
This lends some credence to the hypothesis that quite some part of the variation in population is due to genetic mutation.
Huh. I’d describe myself as optimistic, empathetic, and handling stress well, but I am terrible at understanding speech in noisy environment.s