What do a coffee machine, a mosquito, a fridge, gastric ‘flu and silence have in common? One answer is sounds. Or lack thereof. And all have been researched by Dr. Salomé Voegelin who is Sound Arts Course Leader, and Member of CRiSAP at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Dr. Voegelin […]
Tag: noise
A noisy clock, explained at least sort of
If your clock has a lot of noise — which may not be at all the same thing as if your clock makes a lot of noise — telling time can be a bit involved. A fairly new study describes the situation: “Telling time with an intrinsically noisy clock,” Andrew Mugler, Aleksandra M. Walczak, Chris […]
A Device to Deter a Bear
When a big bear approaches, some people choose to quietly stroll away. To give them an extra measure of safety, Anthony Victor Saunders and Adam Warwick Bell invented what they call a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal“. Saunders, a London-based mountain climber, and Bell, a California patent attorney, applied for a patent in […]
The Power of Whining
There’s a new breakthrough in the attempt to appreciate whining: “Whines, cries, and motherese: Their relative power to distract,” Rosemarie Sokol Chang and Nicholas S. Thompson, Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2011, 5(2), 131-141. The authors, at SUNY New Paltz and Clark University, explain: “Distraction was measured in terms of number of subtraction […]