Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Just how old are your ears???

I never did get a little window on any of the tones, no matter how many times I clicked. Maybe that's why none of us could ever hear the tones.

Do you have a pop-up blocker? It may be blocking the little windows. Try holding the Ctrl key down when you click.

No, no pop-up blocker, rivka. I didn't have the window maximized, so I couldn't see the little window that opened to the right. When I tried it today, the frequencies went from 15,000 to 20,000 and ended with the mosquito. I couldn't hear any of them except Mosquito, and it was pretty quiet. My hearing has decreased in the past 3 or 4 years, but it's a little disheartening to realize how bad it has become.

BTW, I couldn't vote because I don't know if I could hear the 14,000 Hz tone or not.

Every one of them, apart from the mosquito one, sounds exactly the same to me: like a high-pitched hissing. Have to admit that I don't really see the point...


Wendy

Wendy, that's a speaker artifact. The actual sounds are extremely shrill warbles.

With 40+ year old ears, I was very surprised that I could hear all of them. Very annoying. But, hey, since I heard that some places play these sounds to keep kids from hanging around, that might at least explain why I seldom just hang around convience stores

Now, what's even more surprising is that my dog had no reaction whatsoever. I even called her over to stand right next to the computer and all she did was look around to see if I had something for her to eat.

EDIT TO ADD: Oh, by the way, the reason I'm 40+ is because although my hearing appears to be excellent, my memory isn't. I can never remember exactly how old I am. (I think that's because it changes every year )
ML (btw, I enjoyed the test)

I could hear all of them. 20,000 was right at the edge of my hearing, and it hurt! I'm 20 years old, so I suppose it isn't all that unusual that I could hear it. It didn't work on my laptop, so I had my brother turn up the speakers on his computer and we tested all the tones. He could hear each one, as well. He's 18. My little sister (7 years) asked us to stop playing it because it was annoying.

My brother and I decided to test the tones on our Dad, who's 42. We told him that people of middle age or older generally couldn't hear them. So, we played them, and he couldn't hear any of them. He didn't believe that we were telling the truth, so he called our sisters (ages 7, 5, and 5) into his office. He had them turn around, and without playing any of the tones, asked if they could hear anything. Of course, they couldn't. He then played the tones. He asked if they heard anything. They said yes. He asked what they heard. At the same instant, the twins said it sounded like a whistle. He believed us then!

Jen

It really hurt my ears. I heard them all. Cool article! (I'm 29 in July)

EDIT - but my hearing is really bad otherwise!!! Sounds get all muffled together!

Owwwwww. The mosquito one made my hair stand on end

I stopped hearing the sounds, but I could still FEEL them. That sound weird?

As soon as I get on a pc which has some boxes, i'll take the test

Oh great, another thing I need to worry about my 8th grade students trying to pull on me! My mom tells the story of going into a store first thing in the morning when my brother was around 3 years old. When he entered the store, he fell to the ground screaming and covering his ears. No one could figure out what was wrong until an employee realized that someone had forgotten to turn off the silent alarm before they opened for business.

I could hear all of them Am I an Alien?

I could hear up to 17,000, and I'll be 23 on the 23rd of this month. After that, all I could hear (on headphones) was static.

I could only hear the mosquito one and none of the others. My boyfriend who was sitting in the room with me could hear almost all of them.

I'm only 27, so I hope I'm not losing my hearing!!!

My hearing's good, could hear just fine. Guess I'm an Alien too.

No, really, my brother and I are just hypersensitive to noises- most music drives us a little nuts, unless listening to it is absolutely the only thing we're doing (can't even carry on a conversation)- when my brother was little, my mom took him to stores with her and he would just go ballistic. He'd race up and down the aisles, whine, and just be a total handful. She finally realized it was the background music, when she noticed he was calm only in one supermarket- which didn't play any music at the time. Luckily, we've gotten better at tuning out background noise, but it's still really annoying.

Some stores I can't stay in long, because I feel sound humming against my skin, and I've walked out on a few dances because the music just got to be too much.

My TV screen sound is awful! Whenever it's on and it's just black it shrieks at me, though no-one else (cept my older brother) can hear it. My computer screen never made a sound. Then I got the smart idea to put them next to each other. Now they fight! They whine at each other if they're both on, and my computer screen winked out a couple times because of it. And whenever I go near either with a phone- cell or cord, the sound/phone turns to static then cuts out. I'm in the process of seperating them ,but it's just really weird. My brother told me it's because they put out the same kind of waves .