Abstract As on many other evenings, I am listening to my favorite podcast while I prepare dinner for the family. Headphones are the most appropriate transducer in this shared domestic situation, for practical accommodation of simultaneous activities, for respectful coexistence, and because of cultural and industrial inertia since the Walkman boom in 1979 1. On this occasion, I am using for the first time a bone conduction device. Listening using it is different; it is undeniable. While the talk show debates the topics of the day, I also hear the onions browning in the pan and someone asking me from the dining room if I have put salt in the stir-fry. Yes, of course. Small changes are sometimes more important than they seem: This subtle difference in listening has broken a century and a half of paradigm, at least.
Daniel Torras i Segura (Fri,) studied this question.