Auditory Perception
Just last night a conversation transpired between Becca, Megan, and I which precipitated a change in my cell-phone ringtone. We were watching the Olympic Games, and a question arose regarding the origin of the olympic theme song. This and this lead me to the knowledge that the modern olympic fanfare is a composition by none other than John Williams, the man responsible for scoring all of the Star Wars movies, as well as numerous other iconic American movies. So of course I was more than willing to find an mp3 of the fanfare and turn it into a ring-tone for my cell phone, which plays mp3 files which I transfer to it via bluetooth. So now, whenever I recieve a call, I get pumped up. Which might encourage me to answer the phone in a cheerful manner. At the very least I figured it would annoy my co-workers.
I was wrong. My phone rang and no-one around me in the office, all of them deep in their work, heard it or even seemed to react to it. So I stood up and played the audio file off my phone and watched them all. Not a single one of them even twitched an ear. While I was standing someone sneezed and multiple people said “bless you” or gazunheidt or something of that nature. So, the olympic fanfare blaring out in the still silence of the office does not register on anyones conciousness, but a sneeze is immediately, reflexively, brought to the fore-front of their attention.
Now, I don’t ever bless anyone that sneezes, I’ve never understood why that custom persists, I wasn’t ever taught/trained to do do this little ritual by my parents. So, I’m guessing I don’t even hear 90% of the sneezes around me. But something out of the ordinary like a random piece of the olympic theme is a little more likely to catch my attention, but I am very easily distracted. So, my question is what determines the nature of the sounds that intrude on our concious thoughts?