TMI is key. I think it's often the case that the sharer, being functionally anonymous, cares much less about revealing private details than the listener, whose normative private space is violated.

The fact that you're troubled by silence also raises interesting questions. It's as if, absent audible response, you yourself are being petitioned to fill in the gaps - if only in your imagination. That is very distracting.

Thanks, JSA.

More tournament audio is available here: http://www.xword.biz/acptaudio.wav

From Marilynn Huret, who also runs www.garfieldgames.com

Hey Rob,

In saying that visualization is the standard best mode for reading data, I'm simply referring to graphic abstraction. Charts, graphs, and statistics are, in essence, reductions of events (which we always experience through multiple senses) into static pictures that we can study. Of course, it's been wisely pointed out that we can also reduce events through auditory representations, and that we can know the world at a remove through sound just as well as we can through image. But that was the basic idea.

In the meantime, I can't thank you enough for the references, which I'm excited to check out.

That's a keen observation, thanks for sharing. I think we all carry pretty strong expectations about what it means to responsibly present somewhere. This is at the root of debates about cell phone, smartphone, and iPod use on the street and in cars, for example.

Weird things definitely happen when fragments of the private realm float through public space.

Thanks, Toby

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Jim, and especially for the National Parks Service Sounds Program research link.

I agree with you that the adjectives "inherent" or "essential" are probably too absolutist - just as in conventional ecology, acoustic ecology can take many forms and be motivated by many different concerns. It's useful to hear from you about the diversity within the discipline.

There's also an essay worth reading here

Thanks for sharing this, Nick. We're all embarrassed by our undergraduate theses! I really enjoyed reading it, actually. It seems like you were quite passionate about Reed, Akita, and Grandmaster Flash at the time, which is awesome. And the critique of acoustic ecology, obvious as it might seem in some circles, isn't actually that obvious to most people.

What was your thesis about?

Thanks, Connor. Let me know if you want to look at some issues - I'd be curious to hear your take as an acoustician.