Try this simple experiment one day: wear a couple of earplugs and try to conduct your regular everyday activities, for a couple of hours. How would you describe your feelings in that deafened state? You would probably feel a sense of isolation, from the world and from other people. So, absence of sound induces perceived isolation which may turn into felt oppression in some environments, such as...

Thomas Edison is regarded by many as the greatest inventor in American history. While most people know that he invented the first long-burning incandescent light bulb and the phonograph, the claim is based more generally on the 1093 patents he was granted. The assumption is that the person receiving a patent is legally certified as the inventor of the device which is the subject of the patent. ...

Towards the end of the nineteenth century two inventions, the telephone and the phonograph, appeared which were to change the way music was dealt with. Prior to the developments they brought about, every musical performance was indivisible from its place in time and space. Their appearance meant that music could be presented remotely in both time and space from its origin. This has inevitably r...

rip HERE has been considerable interest during the last five years J[ in the possible application of the verbal summator technique suggested by Skinner (4) to the study of personality problems, particularly those which are more serious in nature, including the psychoses. Briefly, the verbal summator [or tautophone, as it has been renamed by Shakow (2)] is a device for repeating small samples of...

A little over a decade ago, prestin was found to be a key gene responsible for hearing in mammals. Prestin makes a protein found in the hair cells of the inner ear that contracts and expands rapidly to transmit signals that help the cochlea, like an antique phonograph horn, amplify sound waves to make hearing more sensitivity. Now, Liu et al. (2014) have shown that prestin has also independentl...

The evolution oF audio Unlike video technologies, which have seen a stream of new innovations over the years (color screens, ever improving resolutions, brighter LCD and plasma screens, various 3D vision enhancements for home and cinema, etc), stereo has been, since 1931, the predominant technology used for audio reproduction. 1877 – Monophonic sound reproduction is created and the phonograph i...