Golden Ears Fail Again

[mystic]

"Misidentification obviously lowers the positive scores." Actually, misidentification lowers correct scores as that is the definition of misidentification. We are concerned about how a person's mood effects their peformance. Why is it hard to see that perhaps mood can make scored go up or down? You seem to imply that there are only two moods bad and good. Is there a state of neither bad nor good mood?

Well, if a "negative bias" would decrease the number correct of a subject (relative to some normal conditions--what they would score without the bias), then a "positive bias" would increase one's score relative to no bias at all. For example, if I really could distinguish A from B, then I might do better when I feel happy or am "pumped". Sometimes people say that they are "in the zone".

You to need to stretch your imagination a bit as one could demonstrate that they can hear differences--and have all their guesses be incorrect. If you did much worse than chance, you would be demonstrating that you can hear a difference, you are just misidentifying the choices. This does happen.

My main point was that if a mood can effect the outcome of a listening test, then one's expectations certainly could (as in a sighted test).

"Positive" and "correct" in the context of the test under discussion mean the same thing to me. After the test, we count the number of times the subject identified the cable as positive (or correct)scores and the number of times he misidentified the cable as negative (or incorrect) scores. Perhaps I'm missing your point.

I didn't mean to imply a person is either in a good mood or a bad mood with no in between. I don't know about everyone, but I'm in between in varying degrees most of the time. However, when not in a good mood I don't like listening to music. Thankfully, music is enjoyable at other times, and can add to feeling good.

Please consider the following hypothetical example of moods hurting performance: The subject in the 13 day blinded test might say " I correctly identified Cable A (the one he preferred in sighted listening) 5 days out of 7 days, and probably would have done better, but wasn't in a good mood those two days so maybe the cable didn't sound good to me for that reason. And I identified Cable B on 5 of 6 days, the one wrong being a day when I felt particularily good."

You gave an example of how you thought a positive mood bias might enhance a person's score. "For example, if I really could distinguish A from B, then I might do better when I feel happy or am "pumped". Sometimes people say that they are "in the zone." If listeners need to be that way to do their best in blinded testing, I see it as a reason to question the validity of the testing. How can you assure that the people who need to be "pumped" will be during the testing?

I continue to wonder whether there is something inconsistent about assuming attitudes, beliefs, and expectations can affect a listener's perceptions while at the same time assuming the act of blinded testing cannot affect his listening performance. If the mind and the way the mind and ears work together can be influenced by so many things, why is the testing itself exempt?

You don't have to tell me about "have all their guesses be incorrect." I have had first-hand experience as a student in doing worse than random on true/false exams. If only I knew then what I know now, I would have tried to convince my instructors I knew the answers but just misidentified the choices. I know this is not the kind of wrong beyond random you are talking about, but it reminded me of those exams.

Reflecting on school experiences, I also recall futile efforts at trying to beat the odds on exam questions. For example, being pretty sure the first three answers on an exam were false, I might guess the fourth should be true unless I was certain it was false. Listener's uncertainty or insecurity about failing could cause "trying to beat the odds" in blinded testing, a distraction that I suspect would hurt performance.

You said " My main point was that if a mood can effect the outcome of a listening test, then one's expectations certainly could (as in a sighted test)." I agree, one's expectations could affect the outcome of a sighted test, but I don't believe they necessarily would. Also, I think expectations could work either for or against hearing differences.