{"694043":{"#nid":"694043","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Blindness, Listening, and the \u2018Noise\u2019 We Can\u0027t Hear","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWrite the letter A 100 times and line them up. One leans slightly left. Another has a longer leg. Same letter, same hand, never quite the same result.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re not computers, right?\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/people.research.gatech.edu\/woon-ju-park\u0022\u003EWoon Ju Park\u003C\/a\u003E, a Georgia Tech neuroscientist and assistant professor of\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/psychology.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Epsychology\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPark uses the handwriting analogy to explain something about hearing. Listen to the same note again and again, and you may hear or judge it a little differently each time. The sound hasn\u0027t changed. Your response to it has.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn a study published in\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.jneurosci.org\/content\/early\/2026\/10\/05\/JNEUROSCI.0510-26.2026\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe Journal of Neuroscience\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Park and her colleagues Jasmine Awad and Ione Fine tested nine adults who had been blind since birth or before age 2 and 18 sighted adults of similar ages and musical backgrounds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVolunteers listened to pairs of notes and pressed a button to indicate whether the second was higher or lower. The adults who grew up blind were better at telling the notes apart. But in another test, the groups performed about the same when asked to identify which of two bursts of noise contained a faint tone.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPark suspected the pitch advantage came from more finely tuned hearing, allowing people to pick up smaller differences between notes. But when the researchers used computer models to test possible explanations, they found stronger support for something else: internal noise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt isn\u0027t static or background sound. Internal noise refers to the small variations Park described with her handwritten A\u0027s. The models suggested that adults who grew up blind had less of that variation when hearing or judging pitch, which could explain why they were better at telling similar notes apart.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe really didn\u0027t expect internal noise to play a role,\u201d Park said. \u201cWe were surprised and wanted to make sure we weren\u0027t seeing something that wasn\u0027t really there.\u201d The researchers drew that conclusion from the volunteers\u0027 answers, not measurements of their brains. They still don\u0027t know exactly where the variation arises.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMusical experience showed a similar pattern. Among both blind and sighted volunteers, people with more years of musical training tended to have lower internal noise in the models. But musical training alone couldn\u0027t explain the difference between the groups.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPark wants to know whether the same advantage appears in everyday listening, from following conversations in noisy places to recognizing what\u0027s happening through sound. She also wants to understand whether experience and practice can change how reliably people distinguish sounds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe brain is working really hard to tune its responses to the world that matters to us,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EPark is affiliated with the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/neuro.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EInstitute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society\u003C\/a\u003E. Her research was supported by the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.nih.gov\/\u0022\u003ENational Institutes of Health\u003C\/a\u003E and Georgia Tech\u0027s Smithgall-Watts Early Career Award.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"People who grow up blind can be better at distinguishing pitches. The possible explanation surprised Georgia Tech researchers."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA study found that adults blind from birth distinguish pitches better, apparently because of \u003Cstrong\u003Elower internal noise\u003C\/strong\u003E. Georgia Tech researchers compared pitch and tone detection in blind and sighted adults.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2022\u2002\u003C\/strong\u003ENine adults blind since birth or before age 2 outperformed 18 sighted adults at distinguishing similar notes, while both groups performed similarly when detecting faint tones in noise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2022\u2002\u003C\/strong\u003EComputer models linked the pitch advantage to \u003Cstrong\u003Eless response variation\u003C\/strong\u003E, not necessarily more finely tuned hearing; musical training showed a similar pattern but did not explain group differences.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2022\u2002\u003C\/strong\u003EResearchers based the conclusion on behavioral responses and plan to study whether the advantage extends to everyday listening and can change through practice.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"People who grow up blind can be better at distinguishing pitches. The possible explanation surprised Georgia Tech researchers."}],"uid":"36410","created_gmt":"2026-11-12 16:26:02","changed_gmt":"2026-11-12 16:31:29","author":"mazriel3","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-11-12T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-11-12T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681786":{"id":"681786","type":"image","title":"Internal Noise","body":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWrite the letter A 100 times, and no two will look exactly alike. Georgia Tech neuroscientist Woon Ju Park uses this variation to explain \u201cinternal noise,\u201d subtle differences in how we perceive or judge the same sound. Her research suggests that people who grew up blind may experience less of this variation, helping them distinguish pitches more accurately.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","created":"1794500781","gmt_created":"2026-11-12 16:26:21","changed":"1794544613","gmt_changed":"2026-11-13 04:36:53","alt":"A hand holds a pen over a spiral notebook page filled with ten numbered rows of the handwritten letter A, nine per row.","file":{"fid":"266240","name":"Handwritten-A-Practice-Page.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/11\/12\/Handwritten-A-Practice-Page.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/11\/12\/Handwritten-A-Practice-Page.png","mime":"image\/png","size":2172474,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/11\/12\/Handwritten-A-Practice-Page.png?itok=dJO0ZguJ"}}},"media_ids":["681786"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"176140","name":"cognitivie psychology"},{"id":"175448","name":"cognitive neuroscience"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193656","name":"Neuro Next Initiative"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMichelle Azriel\u003Cbr\u003ESenior Writer-Editor\u003Cbr\u003EResearch Communications\u003Cbr\u003EInstitute Communications\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:mazriel3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emazriel3@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}