Dr. Poppy Crum

They're giving me more data that's differentiated.

And that's what my brain needs, and that's what my brain's responding to.

And so when we think about that,

You know, my practice as a musician versus my practice playing video games, all of these things influence our brain and influence our plasticity.

Now, where things get kind of interesting to me and sort of my obsession on that side is every time we engage with a technology, it's going to shape our brain, right?

It's both, you know, our environments, but our environments are changing.

Those are shaping who we are.

You know, I think you can look at people's hearing thresholds and predict what city they live in.

Absolutely, yes.

In part, it can be both, right?

Because cities have sonic inference types of noise, things that are very, you know, very loud cities, but also what's creating that noise, right?

That's often unique, the inputs, the types of vehicles, the types of density of people or...

And even the construction in those environments, it is changing what noise exists.

That's shaping, you know, people's hearing thresholds.

At the lowest level, it's also shaping their sensitivities.

If you're used to hearing, you know, certain animals in your environment and they come with, you know—

you should be heightened to a certain response in that, you're going to develop increased sensitivity to that, right?

Whereas if it's really abnormal, you know, I hear chickens.

I have a neighbor who has chickens in the city.

Yes.