For my own part, I would say that the Tinnitus reduces the ability of the
brain (such as it is) to block out background noise. The situation you
quote, Cocktail Parties, is precisely the type of situation where I find it
extremely difficult to home in on one conversation. The other stange effect
is the delay in the brain decoding messages. Typically I find myself in a
situation where someone will speak to me, and I am aware of this but do not
immediately understand what has been said. So I will respond with 'pardon',
and of course the person will repeat what they said. However, by that time I
know exactly what they are going to say! My ENT specialist said that this
was because the brain was taking a short time to decode the speech through
the background noise generated by the Tinnitus. Bloody inconvenient at times
though.

Philip Martin.

----- Original Message -----
From: Brandon, Tom <Tom@PSY.UNSW.EDU.AU>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 1:26 AM
Subject: Re: [OT] Tinnitus sound cancellation


> People note that external sounds help their Tinnitus. This is as you'd
> expect. The brain is very good at blocking out background noise. I'd like
to
> know if people have found headphones (with a non-binaural source) to be
> innefective at removing the Tinnitus? Typically the brain uses positioning
> to block out background noise. This is known as "The Cocktail Party
Effect".
> At a Cocktail party it is relatively easy to follow one conversation and
> ignore all others. Yet, if you take a mono recording of the party, the
> seperate voices become a meaningless mess because the brain can't position
> the voices. I wonder if positioning is playing a role in tinitus
> cancellation?
>
> Tom.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Martin [mailto:philip.martin1@BTINTERNET.COM]
> Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 8:56 AM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OT] Tinnitus sound cancellation
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> New ish to the group, that is subscribed again after a break of a couple
of
> years.
>
> Re this thread on Tinnitus. I suffer from it, have done for years now.
Once,
> many years ago an ENT specialist offered me a sort of cure. The idea was
> that I would undergo some audio tests to discover the main frequency of
the
> sound (ringing) that I was hearing. They would then match this sound, I
> presume the opposite, and then get a hearing aid to pump this sound into
my
> ear, the result being no more ringing in the ear. The down side of this
was
> that I would then be effectively deaf in that ear whilst wearing the
hearing
> aid. I plumbed for the ringing!
>
> Philip Martin.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Brian Gregory <briang@CIX.COMPULINK.CO.UK>
> To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 11:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [OT] Tinnitus sound cancellation
>
>
> > In-Reply-To: <38F6BDB8.78C23109@frii.com>
> >
> > Gus Calabrese <wft@frii.com> wrote:
> > > Has anyone tried matching the tinnitus sounds with a 180
> > > degree phase shifted sound from headphones ?
> >
> > If you knew how the ear works you would see that this cannot work.
> >
> > The tinnitus is due to nerve impulses similar to those which the ear
would
> produce when it
> > hears sound and there is no sound you can make that will cause the ear
to
> send anti nerve
> > impulses to the brain!
> >
> > Brian Gregory.
> > briang@cix.co.uk
> >
>