Word: ear
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...spry 67, has almost fully recovered from a partial paralysis he suffered 17 months ago; he has also broken the chain-smoking habit and is proud of it. "During those first days," he recalls, "I felt that someone had me by the throat and voices were whispering in my ear 'Smoke, smoke...
...hoped to attain a circulation which would have given a free copy of the Advocate to every room in the College; now he has more modest plans. "The magazine will try to get the first issue to all the freshmen," he explained, "and then we will play it by ear, depending on the general reaction...
Since the brain is primed to pick up certain "emotionally important words" out of the din coming into one ear-such as a reference to the partygoer or his interests-it may switch its attention back and forth between the two ears as frequently as three times a second. "You don't actually listen to both at once," says Dr. Moray. "You make up gaps in the conversations by drawing on your past experience of language. This is particularly easy when a conversation is dull and repetitious. In the same way, if the listener is bored with the person...
Sonar for Boredom. Dr. Colin Cherry, 48, professor of telecommunication at London's Imperial College of Science and Technology, and Psychologist Neville Moray of Sheffield University got interested in the cocktail-party problem through their studies on the directional nature of human hearing. They kept their eyes and ears open at cocktail parties, but did their actual sound research in the laboratory-the cocktail parties were too noisy. They discovered that the seasoned partygoer does not face the person he is listening to, but turns only one ear toward him, while using the other ear as if it were...
Easy Cliches. To help his brain make the switch from one conversation to another, the partygoer unconsciously does some lip reading of his companion's chatter from the corner of his eye while one ear is ranging around. Even if three conversations are being fired at his brain at once, say the scientists, the listener can still select the most interesting one by turning his head to varying angles, thus subtly altering the relative time delays of each source as it reaches his ear. One reason the brain can work so efficiently at cocktail parties, says Dr. Cherry...