# The music that is better than itself



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Yup, I am one of the people who would be easy to catch out with this trick.

http://www.statslife.org.uk/significance/1009-the-music-that-is-better-than-itselfg


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

863 listeners and no one could tell the two records were the same??


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Frankly, the article or maybe the page layout hurt my head. It's Friday night and I'm tired. 

Are they saying a good percentage of people "agreed with the experts" so as not appear to have bad taste? Appearances impact a lot of what people will say and if they didn't take that into consideration it seems an incomplete study to me.

I don't think it is unusual if people didn't notice it was the same piece. We tend to see and hear what we expect to see and here. Otherwise we'd strip our mental gears trying to reinterpret the world all the time.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> Yup, I am one of the people who would be easy to catch out with this trick.
> 
> http://www.statslife.org.uk/significance/1009-the-music-that-is-better-than-itselfg


All I got from it is that it tells us something wholly uninteresting about a handful of Harvard students (it did not mention if they were tone-deaf political science majors or music majors, BTW.)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Weston said:


> Frankly, the article or maybe the page layout hurt my head. It's Friday night and I'm tired.


It is horribly written, and it is difficult to extract much sense from it at all, and then it seems as inconsequential as a bird fart.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Yes, like sheep, most people will follow absurdity to preserve their place in the herd.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I am skeptical about the expert who wrote the article and the references included. I haven't checked the references and I do not know much about this subject, so I am essentially a layman. 

I disagree with this expert and I don't know why :lol:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Weston said:


> Are they saying a good percentage of people "agreed with the experts" so as not appear to have bad taste?


What the research implies is actually even worse than that, namely that not only do people mindlessly agree with the "experts," but the "experts" themselves are often every bit as clueless as the unwashed masses.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB said:


> All I got from it is that it tells us something wholly uninteresting about a handful of Harvard students (it did not mention if they were tone-deaf political science majors or music majors, BTW.)


Very likely not music majors, who would presumably immediately hear that the two records were identical. But how many expert opinions about music come from music majors? What the research implies is that we should be very, very skeptical expert opinion, even it comes from very educated people, and indeed even when it comes from experts in the field.



PetrB said:


> It is horribly written, and it is difficult to extract much sense from it at all, and then it seems as inconsequential as a bird fart.


Not sure why you struggled to extract sense from it, but it doesn't seem inconsequential to me at all. Then again, I have read other articles by Simkin, so I sort of know where he is coming from.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

brianvds said:


> What the research implies is actually even worse than that, namely that not only do people mindlessly agree with the "experts," but the "experts" themselves are often every bit as clueless as the unwashed masses.


No, I think that's a misreading. The two records were not judged by experts. The respondents in the experiment were simply told that they were. "Experts" do not usually have such a unanimous consensus.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

You could run the same experiment with a pot of jam.

Jam No.1, labeled "By appointment to her Majesty Nibs IVth"

Jam No.2, (identical to Jam No.1) in the same shaped jar, basic label without graphics appeal, and half the price.

Most customers will purchase Jam No.1 and never even consider trying Jam No.2.

Music or Jam, this is not "news."


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

People are very suggestible. I remember years ago reading about an experiment to see how reliable witnesses were. They played different groups of people a film of a car crash, then asked them to recall the details. If they told them beforehand that a car was going to hit a tree, the respondents reported correctly that the car's windscreen remained intact; if they said that the car was going to 'smash into' a tree, the respondents 'noticed' that the windscreen was shattered. 

And I've embarrassed myself on occasion by misinterpreting a situation based on some preconception.

So it isn't news; but it's still interesting and a useful reminder to query 'universal' opinions and the judgments of experts...


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Ah, the games these "social experimenters" play...

I kind of don't like their sadistic (to me) attitude, let people be imperfect, that's how they are.

Only my opinion.


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## Svelte Silhouette (Nov 7, 2013)

hreichgott said:


> 863 listeners and no one could tell the two records were the same??


Age confuses the mind, eyes and ears ... it comes to us all until one day everything sounds, looks, feels. smells and tastes the same if our hearing aid is working and our spectacles are strong enough ;-)


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## Svelte Silhouette (Nov 7, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> People are very suggestible. I remember years ago reading about an experiment to see how reliable witnesses were. They played different groups of people a film of a car crash, then asked them to recall the details. If they told them beforehand that a car was going to hit a tree, the respondents reported correctly that the car's windscreen remained intact; if they said that the car was going to 'smash into' a tree, the respondents 'noticed' that the windscreen was shattered.
> 
> And I've embarrassed myself on occasion by misinterpreting a situation based on some preconception.
> 
> So it isn't news; but it's still interesting and a useful reminder to query 'universal' opinions and the judgments of experts...


It is very interesting and shows how susceptible we can all be to subliminal imaging etc


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I'm not at all surprised with the experiment. Obviously people are greatly affected by the influence of "experts" even to the point of missing out on a detail such as the records were the same. We are easily manipulated by the idea that someone knows better than us. It's sickening though.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

I think what he was trying to suggest by comparing the two studies is that Harvard people and other intelligent folk are often stupider through their intelligence. Similar numbers in both groups thought the music was the same, where the groups differed was in their tendency to believe the experts. Average people tended to believe the experts in an incorrect belief while more intelligent people disagreed with the experts but the opposite was still an incorrect belief.

Actually hearing music and recognising the notes well enough to know the tunes are identical or that one tune is 'better' than another is a skill not everyone has. So deferring to authority is maybe a sensible choice but the Dunning–Kruger effect says people often overestimate their abilities.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

quack said:


> Actually hearing music and recognising the notes well enough to know the tunes are identical or that one tune is 'better' than another is a skill not everyone has. So deferring to authority is maybe a sensible choice but the Dunning-Kruger effect says people often overestimate their abilities.


Deciding when to defer to authorities and when not to is one of the tricky decisions of our age of specialization.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Beethoven's Symphony No.9, because it's not a very great symphony but its lyric makes it a very famous and important choral work..


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## BillT (Nov 3, 2013)

I think it's pretty much similar to the placebo effect. If you think that cream on your head is making your hair grow, it is. If you think one version is better than the other, it is. 

- Bill


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