#HTE

A Silent GIF That Somehow Makes You Hear a Sound

I’ve seen my share of GIFs, but I’ve never seen any that were able to make me hear a sound. Take a look at this and tell me what you experience:

Do you hear anything? According to this informal survey, 75% of viewers’ brains fill in the audio blanks to provide the repetitive thudding noise of the impact. The poster of this GIF, Dr. Lisa DeBruine of the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, believes this is due to a phenomena known as acoustic reflex, whereby the muscles in the middle ear involuntarily contract in response to stimuli in order to protect the ear from damage–and that it is this contraction that we “hear.”

I’m no doctor, but I disagree wholeheartedly. Because when I see the GIF I not only hear the thud, but I also hear the “rope” slapping against the ground. I believe that a lifetime of watching television, movies and YouTube has conditioned me to correlate certain visuals–a sharply-vibrating camera shot, for instance–with an attendant noise, like a crash, and that my mind is simply filling in the blanks.

Anyways, are you part of the 75% that can hear the noise?