Golden Ears Fail Again

[mystic]

Let's suppose you meet a person who claims to be able to tell Coke from Pepsi. Knowing that human perception is easily misled, you ask him to demonstrate that he can. He agrees and you pour the colas into cups and set up a test. You attempt to hide which is which from him and he, at first, objects but eventually agrees. You mix up the drink so he doesn't know which is which (but it is written under a piece of tape on each cup. He driinks each, taking a long as he likes, and being able to take as big a sip as he wishes. You ask if he can tell the difference and he says "yes, for sure".

The test is completed and you add up his score and find that his correct number of responses is exactly what you would expect by chance from someone who could not tell the difference between the colas.

You tell him the results. He says that there is something wrong with the test, because he knows that he can tell the difference. He says that it is unfair to not let him know which is which before hand and suggests that the pressure of the test affected his ability to do the test. You test him again, this time he is not so cocky. Again he fails to demonstrate he can tell the difference.

He still claims he can. He says your test is flawed because he needs to know which is which to tell the difference (I'll bet that helps a lot). He says that you need to test your test because it does not reveal the truth. Why would he lie about this, he asks? You say, because you are fooling yourself--your perception of taste is being affected by your expectations. You point out this is a well-known scientific fact. He says you are a pin head and that all you care about is numbers, not reality. Besides, he loves Coke and you are spoiling his fun.

You meet another guy. He says he can easily tell Coke from Pepsi. You say "That's nice, but I can't believe you until you demonstrate that you can because you tested somebody and found out they couldn't. He says, "well that was him, I can do it," You test him and he cannot distinguish Coke from Pepsi. He calls you a naysayer and says: "you think everything tastes the same because you can't tell the difference." You say: "neither can you" and until somebody does, I am not sure anybody can. I know one thing for SURE, just because people SAY they can doesn't mean they really can.

This is a rough approximation of what has happened with blind listening tests of amps and cables. Except the situation is much worse for these audio compoents, Much time has gone by and nobody has demonstrated the ability to distinguish these type of components. In addition, scientific test has established that people's hearing sense cannot distinguish the differences in sound at the levels measured from audio components.

The bottom line is what you consider logical or fair is not what I do, nor, I claim--what a scientific opinion would be.

Someday I'll get around to doing a blinded taste test to see if I can distinguish Diet Coke from Diet Pepsi. I drink a lot of both, but have no preference, and buy whichever is on sale.I think I can tell the difference, but wouldn't bet on it. It should be an easy test to do --much easier than a cable test. One problem might be the taste carryover from cup to cup, but rinsing the mouth with water between cups could be a solution. Another problem could be the repeated number of trials in a short period lessening the ability to discern. Rather than doing say 14 trials in one day, however, you could do two trials a day for seven days.

Suppose we deveop what we believe to be a flawless way to do blinded taste testing on subjects who say they can taste a difference between Coke and Pepsi. We then test 20 subjects, and none can tell a difference. I would only conclude those 20 subjects couldn't taste the difference in that test. However, if we had a scientific sample representative of all people who claimed to taste a difference, and they all failed to do so, I would conclude there probably is no one who can taste the difference. Sure, it's possibile some rare individual out there can do it, but not likely.

From what you have told me, I think you would conclude that if those 20 subjects can't taste a difference, no one can. I suspect you might further conclude all similar soft drinks taste alike. These extrapolations would be too much of a stretch for me.

I have respect for the opinions of scientists. But I know of cases where scientific opinions have been proven wrong. I also know that opinions of scientists can be different.