Last week, I posted a challenge to listen to two pairs of audio samples, and answer two simple questions about them. If you haven’t tried it yet, you might like to check it out before you read the answers.
Six months ago, I did a similar experiment to see if people could tell the difference between compressed an uncompressed audio. Although the results didn’t suggest that anybody could tell difference, it had one key flaw: it’s impossible to prove that nobody can do something. Without testing all the people all the time, you might miss somebody, and that somebody might be working for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
This time, I approached the problem from the opposite direction: is it possible for people to think they’re hearing differences that don’t exist, and are these false perceptions vulnerable to suggestion? (more…)