Evp has always puzzled me. I haven’t studied it any further than finding the meaning, but I’ve heard tapes and always wondered if it was a blatant hoax, or if there is an actual scientific explanation.
Posted: September 29th 2009
Dave Hitt www
The brain works by recognizing patterns. When there is no pattern, the brain supplies one. An electrical outlet has no relation to a human face, but that’s what we see.
Our ears work the same way. We try to make sense of what we hear. If it doesn’t make sense, because there’s no recognizable pattern, we’ll try to apply a pattern to it. As a result random noise can sound like voices or music if you listen closely. Most lyrics, played backwards, will sound like real words if you listen hard enough. It works best when you tell the listener what they’re supposed to hear. They may hear gibberish at first, but give them subtitles, and suddenly they say “Ah, now I can hear it.”
Here’s a great example of that. It’s an Indian Video with English subtitles of what they lyrics sound like to ears familiar with the English language. They’re not really signing “My Loony Bun is Fine Benny Lava.” But it sure sounds like that, doesn’t it?
Posted: October 1st 2009
SmartLX www
The general scientific explanation for this is an auditory form of pareidolia – the phenomenon whereby we tend to perceive random stimulus as significant, or at least non-random. The article in the link actually lists EVP as an example.
White noise is so called because it is saturated with every frequency in a certain range, like all the colours in the visible spectrum combine to form white light. The frequencies may fade in and out or stutter apparently randomly, so at any point when frequencies and rhythms similar to speech are relatively dominant in the cacophony, we’re going to think we’ve heard actual speech.
White noise is a perfect canvas for the mind to paint its own stimulus, just like static on a TV. When I stare at static for about 30 seconds, I start to see curved lines slowly writhing around in there. (What do you see?) Likewise, if you listen to enough white noise you’ll hear just about every conceivable sound mixed in together, so it’s a matter of personal brainwaves which sounds you pick out.
Posted: September 30th 2009