Japanese Sensitivity to Traditional Sounds Like Wind Chimes and Insects Might Be Unnoticed by Westerners

Insect Sounds: Japanese People Hear with the “Left Brain” of Language, While Foreigners Hear with the “Right Brain” of Music

In summer, hearing the sound of wind chimes feels refreshing, and hearing insect sounds evokes a sense of autumn. However, it seems that only Japanese and Polynesians can distinguish between insect sounds and wind chime sounds.

This is explained by the theory of Tadanobu Tsunoda, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Medical and Dental University.

The human brain is divided into the “right brain” and the “left brain,” with the right brain being called the music brain and the left brain being called the language brain. The right brain processes music, machine sounds, and noise, while the left brain handles logical and intellectual processing, such as understanding spoken words.

So, which part of the brain processes insect sounds and wind chime sounds? According to the theory, Japanese people process these sounds with the “left brain,” while foreigners process them with the “right brain.” In other words, Japanese people perceive insect sounds as “voices,” but foreigners treat them as “noise,” which may be why they don’t hear them.

Professor Tsunoda states that this way of using the brain is not genetic but depends on whether Japanese was learned as the mother tongue initially.

“I believe that Japanese culture has a significant impact as well.”

This is stated by Associate Professor Satoshi Hozumi of Ibaraki Christian University.

“As mentioned in the Manyoshu, Japanese people have traditionally experienced and enjoyed the changing seasons through the sounds of insects.

The culture of interacting with and becoming familiar with insects is unique to the Japanese, and it is this culture, history, and experience that allows Japanese people to ‘hear’ the sounds of insects. The same likely applies to the sound of wind chimes as well.”

The left brain also produces alpha waves when hearing the sound of insects.

But do we Japanese people really find the sound of insects pleasant? This is what was investigated by Associate Professor Hozumi and his research team.

The research team examined the sounds of three insects with distinctive calls: the cricket, the grasshopper, and the bush-cricket. They analyzed these sounds to determine whether they have the “1/f fluctuation” that is said to bring a soothing effect and measured whether alpha waves, an indicator of a relaxed state, were produced.

“As a result, all three species showed a tendency for alpha waves to be more strongly induced in the left brain. It seems that most subjects experienced stimulation of the left brain and listened to the insect sounds in a relaxed state.”

It appears that Japanese people indeed hear insect sounds with the left brain.

By the way, here is how these insects make their sounds: the crickets produce a sound like “rin, rin, rin, rin” four times, then pause for a while, and begin again with “rin, rin, rin, rin.” The field crickets emit a continuous “riri riri riri” sound, while the bush crickets start with “riri riri riri” and then shift to a “rurururu” sound, pause briefly, and start again in the same manner.

The highest level of alpha waves was observed with the field crickets, followed by the bush crickets, and then the crickets.

“However, when we conducted a survey asking subjects which insect sounds they found most pleasant, the bush crickets ranked first, while the field crickets were third. This result did not match the order of alpha wave levels.”