Is American Idol Schizophrenic?
“Idol Schizophrenia”?
Science seems to have uncovered why some of this seasons American Idol contestants are unable to hear that they are singing badly and out of tune. A study recently conducted by US researchers may provide a possible explanation. The study reported that people with schizophrenia cannot hear false notes in music. This may help explain why many of the current contestants of the show are unaware of how badly they sing.
Schizophrenia may block the music in speech: study
Thursday, March 1, 2007
By Maggie FoxWASHINGTON (Reuters) - People with schizophrenia cannot hear false notes in music as well as healthy people do, and often cannot make out important tones that convey meaning in speech, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
They now want to see if their findings could lead to new ways to treat the disease, either with drugs, therapy or both.
“We show they are not experiencing the world normally. They don’t read social cues. They can’t read facial expressions. They can’t tell by tone of voice what emotion a person is showing.”
“They can’t use pitch — they just don’t hear those pitch changes. Not only do they not get emotion, they don’t get whether it is a question or a statement. And what we show in the paper is that these sensory abnormalities are driven by structures in the brain, in the connections between the brain stem and the auditory cortex,”
Schizophrenia occurs in about 1 percent of the population everywhere.
It is far more common in men than in women and is usually diagnosed in late adolescence or early adulthood.
This explains much.
Along with the other male contestants,
I hope that Sanjaya gets better
Francis L.