What causes this curious sonic phenomenon?

[rasputin1963]

I'll bet it's happened to all of us:

 

You'll be watching a TV, with the volume turned amply up, when you'll hear a cellphone ring in your house, or hear your doorbell ring, or hear a car honk outside.

 

 

After a startled moment, you'll deduce that the sound came not from your environment, but from the TV show you're watching.

 

What causes some TV sound effects to sound as though they're coming from somewhere in your house (and not from the TV speaker) ?

[nice keetee]

do you have surround sound turned on?

stereo?

[Raymar]

Don't watch much TV these days and I've never experienced that but I have had key words and phrases from the tube suddenly drowned out by outside noises. However my car stereo is another matter. I've heard odd sounds listening to music while driving thinking it was a mechanical problem with my car only to have it fade out as I turned the volume down.

[A. Einstein]

I sometimes pick up phone calls in sitcoms

[blue2blue]

 

I'll bet it's happened to all of us: You'll be watching a TV, with the volume turned amply up, when you'll hear a cellphone ring in your house, or hear your doorbell ring, or hear a car honk outside. After a startled moment, you'll deduce that the sound came not from your environment, but from the TV show you're watching. What causes some TV sound effects to sound as though they're coming from somewhere in your house (and not from the TV speaker) ?

Are you listening in stereo? Even if you don't have a fake-surround feature on your set turned on, some stereo programs have, particularly in the past, aggressively used extreme "spatial extension" tricks to trick the ear into thinking that sounds are coming from far outside the 'soundstage' seemingly defined by the speakers.

 

 

Another phenom -- although far from mysterious -- that I note is that when I had the 'classic mechanical phone ringer' sample (included with my phone) as the ringtone on my Android, it just happened to be from a clearly popular sound fx library. I watch a lot of old movies (and old TV shows when I have access to favorites) and while most of the phones ringing in those movies and TV shows were different recordings -- a lot of shows used 'my' ringtone. The ambience, the ring, drop dead the same -- meaning frequent confusion. I finally got fed up, went on Soungle, found a mechanical phone sample with a moderately distinctive two-part mechanical ring, and since then, I've pretty much had no probs.

[techristian]

The sounds of cell phones are usually produced by simple synthetic waves which can be easily recorded and played back. That is why they are so convincing when played back on TV. Add to that stereo and voila !

 

Dan

[A. Einstein]

your hearing fails in sound localization, this is pretty coomon among marching band conductors

[A. Einstein]

btw, do you know thus joke:

 

 

Interviewer: "Mr. Stavinsky, what do you think about the new trend in Russia symphony orchestras performing without conductor?"

 

 

Igor Stavinsky: "I am not concerned about the symphony orchestra with no conductor, but rather about the conductors without symphony orchestras."

[WRGKMC]

The sound of a Ding Dong door bell on TV fools my Collie every time.

It doesnt even have to be exactly like our door bell, its just needs to ne close to

the standard double chime to set her off.

 

Last time she did it was some scene in a european railway station and that had that

subtle didng dong sound followed by an anouncer 4 times. It took me a second to catch it myself

cause it was just film ambiance in a busy station.

I thought it was a real hoot when the dog barked myself. My wife went to the door when the dog kept barking.

I backed up the scene with the remote and the dog started barking again.

 

The wife hadnt caught chime in the background of that show nor related it to

the dog hearing a doorbell, but the collie heard it every time. Shes a snmart pooch.

I got my wife check the door a second before I eventually let her in on the spook

causing the problem.

 

I got a nice rap on the back of the head for being a prankster.

 

The dog doesnt realize where sound comes from obviously, she just hears

that tone and it means theres a visitor. Not much unlike someone grabbing for a phone

because of a movie spook when it comes down to it.

 

I have a pretty unique cellphone ring so I seldom have to do a double take fo it

plus the fact I dont give my number out to many people.

[Lee Knight]

Here's my take on the phenomenon.

 

Those types of sounds are of course encoded to the surround channels. And of course they'll play back fine in stereo. But, lots of TV's have a built in "stereo enhancement" stage that's going to throw the stereo wide to fake a big soundstage from the limited physical size of your actual TV. Combine that with refections form your specific environment and you're going to get all sorts of crazy localization cues from those sorts of things.

 

I notice it all the time.

[urca]

I think it's mostly what you're tuned into. We reflexively react when we hear a cellphone or doorbell to answer it, even if it's on TV or if the cellphone belongs to someone else (ever hear someone elses go off and reach for yours?).