On Human Perceptual Bandwidth and Slow Listening

摘要

Locked away inside its shell, the brain has ever only learned about the world through our five primary senses. With them, we just receive a fraction of the information actually available, while we perceive far less still. A fraction of a fraction: The perceptual bandwidth. Conscious perception is furthermore influenced by long-term experience and learning, to an extent that perception might be more accurately understood and studied as primarily an inside-to-out phenomena. Summarizing a review of physiological, clinical and psychological research, the paper proposes three types of listening strategies we should distinguish between when conducting subjective tests: Easy listening, trained listening and slow listening.