I swear that was my cell phone!
Six minutes 39 seconds into the Richard Thompson song Calvary Cross, Mike Pelusi, a music reviewer in Philadelphia, will almost invariably check his cell phone.
Minka Wiltz, an actress in Atlanta, has tried to answer her phone to the thrrrrup, thrrrrup, thrrrrup of a truck bouncing down a pothole-pocked street.
Others say they thought they heard phones ring while taking a shower, using a blow-dryer or watching commercials. What they are hearing is a barely discernable sound — perhaps chimes, a faint trill or an electronic bleat — that they mistake for the ringtone of their cell phone, which isn't ringing.
This audio illusion — called phantom phone rings or, more whimsically, ringxiety or fauxcellarm — has emerged recently as an Internet topic and has become a new reason for people to either bemoan the techno-saturation of modern life or question their sanity.
Some sound experts believe that because cell phones have become a fifth limb for many, people now live in a constant state of phone vigilance, and hearing sounds that seem like a telephone's ring can send an expectant brain into action.
“My experience has been hearing just a few notes that are similar to my phone's ring, my brain will fill in the rest,” said David Laramie, a doctoral student at the Los Angeles campus of the California School of Professional Psychology, who is writing his dissertation about the effect of cell phones on behavior.
Phantom rings are a “psycho-acoustic phenomenon” related to the way the human brain interprets sound, said Rob Nokes, president of Sound Dogs, a sound effects company in California.
The ear gives unequal weights to certain frequencies, making it particularly sensitive to sounds in the range of 1,000 to 6,000 hertz, scientists say. Babies cry in this range, for example, and the familiar “brrring, brrring” ringtone hits this sweet spot, too. (Simple ringtones are more likely to produce phantom rings than popular music used as a ringtone.)
On blogs, some cell phone users wonder if an ominous agenda is at work. A writer posting as Koan on forumgarden.com said that at first, songs played on the radio triggered a phantom ring. “Thing is, the high-pitched sounds, although a lot fainter, are still present during announcements now,” Koan wrote. “What is this? Is it subliminal advertising ... or something else?”
Peter Arnell, the chief creative officer of the Arnell Group in New York, said that theory might not be far off the mark. He thinks the increasing use of high-pitched, electronic tones is very much by design.
“People are using a sound trigger to control emotions,” Arnell said. “The most controlling device in our life right now is a cell phone.”
He suggested that a sound trick that sent confused listeners hunting for their cell phones might be especially effective for ads ending with a call to action. (An example is a directive to “Call this toll-free number now!”)
–New York Times
