Blog of My Life

"Psychoacoustics of a Chilling Sound."

Nails on a chalkboard and squeaking of styrofoam are said to be universally irritating. For me, I'm only affected by the former. However, there's another thing that annoys the hell out of me, and that is CORN STARCH. Whenever I try to scoop a spoonful of corn starch, even though I can't hear it, I can FEEL it. It annoys me the same way how nail on chalkboard does. I suspect the friction between each fine corn starch particles generates the same annoying nail-scratching-board sound but at a higher frequency (like the different octaves of sound).

I suggest people should study more into this subject. If people are annoyed by a unique frequency, the military can possibly be able to create a weapon out of this. In this case, the weapon holder may use it to generate piercing sounds without annoying themselves.

A team of researcher has done a research on this and titled it "Psychoacoustics of a Chilling Sound." Here's a summary:

It appears that the sound (and certain other sounds at the same frequency) plays havoc with a middle ear muscle known as the stapedius. Normally, this muscle contracts just before we speak or chew, and helps to protect the inner ear. If something disrupts its function, the piercing sound goes right through to the sensitive eardrum.

Anyways, if you TOO feel the same way about CORN STARCH, please LET ME KNOW!