All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
REDMOND, Wash -- When building the new international headquarters for Microsoft Research, construction workers purposefully kept one room separate from the rest of the building. This was done so that even the most subtle and minute vibrations wouldn't affect its sound integrity, as researchers needed complete silence for their work.
"This is probably the most quiet place any of you have ever been," warned Ivan Tashev (pictured above), a software architect with Microsoft's Speech Technology Group, before leading a group of journalists and Microsoft clients into the double doors that sealed the room.
After entering the new audio lab, I have to admit he was right. With its angular walls coated in a special sound absorbent material, everything about room was designed for one purpose: to eliminate vibrations, noise and, it turns out, sanity. Even the "floor" we stood on was really just bouncy chickenwire on top of more angular protrusions. The one concession designers did make was to incorporate specially designed air ducts that pump air into the room. While they do produce a minute level of noise, they can also be shut off, effectively cutting off all air flow for "perfect silence," as one Microsoft researcher put it.
The result, we discovered, was that voices instantly became dull and dislocated. Even clapping sounded flat and directionless.
It's in this room that Microsoft researchers conduct various sound experiments to improve teleconferencing and various auditory recognition technologies. By effectively simulating complete silence, researchers can accurately measure spatial sound patterns without having to deal the with echoes and reverberations that are a part of our normal day-to-day existence. Using a creepy mannequin (MAX) with audio sensors inserted between his rubber ears, researchers can also toy around with beamforming -- the ability to make a microphone listen in on a given location while suppressing the signals coming
from other locations.The end result, according to Tashev, is better speech recognition algorithms, a better overall acoustic experience while listening to music on your headphones and better sound quality in microphone arrays.
So what happens to humans in the absence of all auditory stimulation? Tashev told us we were experiencing "audio hallucinations," only they weren't hallucinations at all. Turns out, you actually do start to pick up on the nuances of your own body at work. The sound of the blood in the vessels of your inner ear suddenly becomes apparent. After a minute or so, you can even hear your own heart beat. You also get dizzy.
When a fellow journalist noted these strange bodily sensations, Tashev noted that our brains were simply hungry for information. As pattern deciphering machines, we crave input -- even when there is none. With no external sound to stimulate us, we simply start to pick up on the sounds our own bodies emit.
Technically, I guess this means there is no such thing as the sound of silence after all. Sorry Paul and Art.
