Is positive reinforcement why things are sounding better?

Great example!

Me too with my children !😊

It is not a lie, it is the result of confirmation biases from their birth till now, all normal parent felt in a rightfull manner for his children... The fact that it can blind us and makes us unable of a wise judgement is another matter ... And a biased judgement must not be confused with a lie ...

We cannot perceive without biases... Biases are not only negative they can be positive , innate or acquired... They can result also from a rational thinking process as in the abductive reasonning ...

I can’t help but notice that most people’s babies are not that nice looking but when my boys were babies they were adorable.

If you dont know anything else some confirmation biases will had an indefinite life span...😁

I really thought my Tannoy concentric dual gold which were legendary speakers, i really think for the 40 years i owned them that they sound good...😁

in truth because i had no acoustics concepts at all , I didn’t knew and had no way of knowing that they sound atrociously UNDER their optimal potential optimal level...

I never knew it and alas! i sold them BEFORE learning acoustics...

It is how an ignorant can own a top speakers and had never listened to them really ...

This ignorant was me ... 😊

 What i just said is so true that my actual  modified low cost speakers deliver an experience which is by some acoustic factors better than my past Tannoy even if they are an inferior design  . Performance go with the rightfull optimal   way we use the speakers specs in a system /room . A better design as with my Tannoy is not enough. We need to install the speakers in his optimal settings. 😎

Then confirmation bias are not mere only short lived placebo illusion , they can be a rightful positive opinion about some speakers which delude us about these speakers real potential because we are ignorant .

it is the reason why many reviewers delude us without willing to do it... It is why price tags conditioning works... Or legendary good reputation ...Plug and play and if it is a good product it will play good ...😆

Not always sorry and never so much better than if you had learned how to use it at the optimum acoustic level ...😊

All people participating in good faith  are invited "de facto" to any thread...For sure...This is a common place acepted fact ..

Save trolls viruses who harass someone and did not contribute in any way with positive content and argument to the thread...As you did...they are not welcome by anybody ...

Anybody can verify what i said about your behaviour consulting the thread last 2 pages "the mystery of sound is mysticism"...😊 They will see your "contribution" ...

Not ashamed? 😊

You are so confused here :

To the topic of this thread: confirmation bias, as it relates to audio, involves telling one’s self that one is hearing something that one is not actually hearing. Basically lying to one’s self.

I will not even answer. It seems you are unable to read any scientific article or even a wikipedia page about a concept as clearly defined ..

Acoustics parameters must be improved all together and put in balance for a specific ears/brain...

If we dont learn about all acoustics aspects of sound it is easier to loose sight of one...

But sometimes we forget this because of our focus bias pick one thing that matter for us and let the other aspect aside :

As I typed previously: there was no sarcasm intended--I was serious.

How do you call your postings in a serious thread about an information important for all of us ?

I get it! You were not sarcastic no, if i judge by your understanding of the concept of confirmation bias, you certainly cannot understand the articles about acoustic revolution in the making, no, you really think that i must go to an asylum for nuts ...

Then you were merely harassing a fool with no sarcasm intended... Just the fun of it... I get it...

Enjoy the evening...

😊

Do you know the difference between a "rambling diatribes" and an argument conceptually detailed ?

read my post above they clarify the simplistic claim of hilde45 about confirmation biases and the true definition with two different sources...

Then you claim to avoid me, OK, do you avoid rational argument too answering a simplistic claim ?

Do not lie, you DO NOT AVOID ME, you came uninvited for example in the thread "the mystery of sound is mysticism " where you never posted any positive contribution expressely to derail the thread with sarcasms , and this after i posted 6 articles and information about  a book describing a very important acoustic revolution right now confirmed by two set of experiments  for the benefit of all audiogon readers, you insulted me instead of thanking me  and harassed my posts with no arguments only useless sarcasms..

Actually, @mahgister , I do not "trail you in all threads." I try to avoid you. It just so happens that I commented in this thread prior to your rambling diatribes, so maybe you are trailing me?

Then this post of you is not the result of a confirmation biases against me , it is a flat upright lie...

Idiot do not have shame ...

«Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes
the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs,
expectations, or a hypothesis in hand. The author reviews evidence of such a bias in a
variety of guises and gives examples of its operation in several practical contexts.
Possible explanations are considered, and the question of its utility or disutility is
discussed.»

Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises
Raymond S. Nickerson
Tufts University

https://pages.ucsd.edu/~mckenzie/nickersonConfirmationBias.pdf

It is here for all to read that conflating confirmation biases with lying is reducing a complex process to a simplistic process and conflating the concept of biases with the concept of lies...

i post this for the benefit of all. I dont hopen or think  the harassing idiot

who trail me in all threads is in a state making him able to any understanding ... This biases in me is confirmed by his behaviour and inhability to ever provide any argument against my post... He troll me because of blinding hate or complete stupidity or a mix of the two ..😊

I formulated it incompletely to answered your post which is not even wrong,... Because lying is a possible result of the incoming confirmation related to our biases but not necessary part of the process.

Confirmation biases do not begun with a lie , they begun by taking a road instead of another because each incoming steps taken confirm that we are right picking our stating point to begin with ...It is an objective process in ourselves once our biases set had selected a starting point ...And biases are not lies and they do not implied necessarily liying yo ourselves.

it is a process that is undetectable at the beginning, picking a road because it fit us like a glove instead of another like someone who realizes, for example, that a favorable review of a product proves that he have made the right choice which is not always true because our biases can induce us in error... An error is not a lie.

If you reduce confirmation biases to liying to ourselves , you are not even wrong , because at the end of a process we may effectively begun to lie to ourselves before realizing we have taken the wrong starting point to accommodate us at the times and then  refusing to admit that we had taken the wrong road ...Then lies may be implicated at the end of the process but cannot be used to give a definition of the process itself... I know that you know that ...

As in a marriage for example , we lie to ourselves at the beginning (if it is a confirmation bias ) not at the end generally even in this totally psychological situation ...😁😊 but the choice of an audio product do not begun generally with a lie to ourselves if we mean to speak about biases,  which we cannot eliminate anyway because it is in most case the starting point ,  and the process of confirmation all along the road  linked to them . Biases are not lies, biases can even be positive and in spite of that  inducing us on the wrong road.. We can become conscious of our biases. Refusing to taken into account our biases when and once they become conscious is  then lying to ourselves.

Then when you said ,it does obviously, you proposed to define the possible end result of an objective psychological process road to be a mere lying process , this is an erroneous definition as the wikipedia definition demonstrate it evidently ...

You are probably a good corrector but a way less good thinker...

Confirmation biases has nothing to do with "lying to ourself" in particular or specifically

Yes, it does, obviously.

confirmation bias does not last very long. over the longer run is where you tell if an upgrade really is an upgrade.

Well said. I tried to lie to myself about Be tweeters until I just...couldn’t...take it.

Confirmation biases has nothing to do with "lying to ourself" in particular or specifically ...

«Confirmation bias (also confirmatory bias, myside bias,^[a] or congeniality bias^[2]) is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.^[3] People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias is insuperable for most people, but they can manage it, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills. »

For 40 years by acoustic ignorance i was comforted in the choice of speakers i made, by all i read, all i experienced , till the end when i sold them not because i was lying to myself but because i was ignorant of acoustics and the way to make them really shine at their optimal. ( which would had been like comparing day and night for ANY speakers anyway)

My confirmation set of biases was born from all the reviews i read for 40 years confirming the Tannoy dual gold as top speakers AS IT IS plug and play... I did know nothing about acoustics optimization extraordinary tools .

I was deluded by their reputation , price tags at the time (high end), and my limited knowledge and all others speakers i experienced put in a living room with no acoustics particular caution confirmed me in my biases...I felt good as i was comforted in my set of biases by time passing and by comparison ...

Those of us who practice this hobby have a pre determined idea of how we want our system to sound

This is certainly mostly true because we know what are the parameters at play which must be put under controls for a specific speakers design to make it shine in a SPECIFIC ROOM ...

A bookshelf is not a big magnepan for example...

Once the right electrical, mechanical and acoustical working conditions are adressed we will had natural timbre and listener envelopment. In the window of possibility resulting from the gear pieces design choices and trade-off ...

Only passive consumers will have no idea about what could be the optimal experience and how to make it possible for the chosen pieces of gear...

For sure if i travel as a tourist from one showroom to another i will never had any idea about how the next system will be and i will learn almost nothing because it is not me that played with the speakers/room parameters to improve them ... my tourism audiophile will only confirm my own  biases i will call my tastes... 😊

thanks! your testimony is very clear!

You said it better than me and with few words...😊

This will help those who think that "tasting " the gear is the key...

Or those who think that measuring the gear specs anew is the key ...

We dont lack deluded people thinking acoustics concepts and parameters are secondary to gear price tags ...

+1 @mahgister

Before I built a properly soundproof listening room and then spending a couple years finding the proper acoustic treatments for it to sound good to my ears, no way was I able to accurately assess the values, positive or negative, of any piece of equipment.

if you dont know and cannot interpret acoustically with the right set of concepts what you are hearing it is a mere change of S.Q. motivated by unknown factors or a bias to hear some change which we also inevitably project on the change phenomenon with no concepts to guide us consciously ...

Suppose you know your gear as an acoustic experience and suppose you know what parameters change you had done till the new piece of gear was added and their perceived results, for example timbre, bass, imaging, soundstage listener envelopment , sound source width , crosstalk , position , dynamics, reverberation time etc ; then when you add a co0mponent and install it in the right way, your body (not your ego ) remember the last S.Q. experience and can spot the change and interpret it as a feeling ...Your experienced ego will then come and think about the right concept to associate with the feeling but your ego must know the concept to begin with .😁

To verify what i am just claim : ask your old mother in law who never hear a stereo system "consciously" and in an educated way , ask her to describe the sound . She will say " this is good my dear" , what else could she said she had no concepts about sound parameters.😁

i just added silicone rings on the tubes of my preamplifier, my body/brain sensed immediately a change my experienced conscious ego interpreted FEW MINUTES LATER as a better imaging and a more detailed timbre effect without loosing the mids frequencies naturalness and with no loss in the bass and better highs frequencies .

The ego is full of biases positive acquired once as in the journey learning curve or acquired as negative biases related to hope, branded name, suggestion , marketing and ignorance but if our body /brain was trained for such in acoustics experiments it will be able to felt a real change and we may be able to interpret it because we had learned how to listen our memory feeling engraved in our body piloted by the set of concepts we studied and we will need to interpret any experience ......😊 If we never acquired these associated feelings with acoustic parameters modifications, the only evident feeling felt would be conditioned negative biases or false positive one .

This is why seasoned reviewers used to their room acoustic conditions or any acoustician know what he hear because it had felt it first and recognize which concepts he needs to interpret it ...

This is my description of my own experience as i understand it ...

We are not consumers passive conditioned dogs we can learn consciously using our own sense apparatus and body doing so ...

You cannot build a system/room at optimal level accordingly to his design quality with only negative -placebo effects, suggestions , and price tags and random modifications only .. You need to train your hearing body with the controlled set of parameters in the three working mechanical,electrical and acoustical dimensions. Then you learned consciously learning also to hear your body reactions and then associate it with the right concepts .