Kat <tsarren at alyra.org> writes: > I am fascinated with the myriad ways that people's brains process different > types of data at the same time. For any who wish to share, a query: > > 1. Are any of you musicians? I had a really weird moment at a Renaissance > faire last spring - I was listening to a pipe & drum band play a lively tune > along with a non-musician partner; after a handful of measures he turned to > me and said, "is the snare in any way at all related to what the bagpipes > are playing?" I was astounded; the snares were playing a rich counter-rythm > and apparrently he couldn't hear the relationship *at all*; the quantity of > the difference in cognition was suprising. I am curious to know if being / > not being a musician affects the types of music that work or don't work with > your multi-tasking in any predictable way. Interesting in connection to work music. I've seen a tendency for musicians to have broader tastes in music than their listeners, at least. And for musicians to have less critical tastes in stereo equipment than non-musicians (I *think* I've corrected for the traditional poverty of musicians here, but I could be wrong). It makes sense that a muscian might be more likely to be fully engaged by the music, hence find it clashes with other things. > > From: Nytemuse [mailto:nytemuse at auros.org] > > > I don't necessarily agree. My b/f had the hardest time understanding why > > > I couldn't get any work done on the computer or doing homework or > > > something without the TV on or music or chatting with someone. > > Are you actually processing the TV/music at the same time you're doing work? > or is it white noise in this case? > > I also have a situation in which I need extra input of a different type - > lecture. Processing a spoken monologue for any length of time over about 5 > minutes will drive me up the wall and send me deep into my own thoughts in > search of more stimulation and input, unless a) the person has a great enough > density of information in their speech such that I'm devoting all of my > effort to it, or b) I either draw stuff or play a minesweeper-type game. I > just wish I'd figured this out in high school instead of my last year of > college... doodling was always frowned upon because it meant you weren't > "paying attention", so for awhile I kept telling myself I wasn't supposed to > be doing it. > > If anyone else has extra-input needs, I'd be interested in hearing them. I survived some audio-cassette courses at one point by playing them at double-speed on an old cassette recorder (thus playing them at twice the original frequency, too). The distortion of the speech added enough cognitive work that I didn't get bored having to go through them at only *double* the usual data rate. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/ John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info