Plasticity is a pitch discrimination game — that is, a game which tests and improves your ability to distinguish between similar sounds based on their frequency (pitch). You hear two sounds, which may have the same or different frequency (with 50-50 probability) and your job is to say whether they have the same frequency or different frequencies. At first, the differences are fairly obvious, but as you level up, they become smaller and smaller, which makes your job harder.
Plasticity can be a fun game to play (at least, if you believe some of my friends). In addition, it might be helpful if you want to improve your pitch discrimination skills – for example, if you’re a musician.
Plasticity is based on the Firefox Audio API and, as such, requires Firefox 4 or higher. Plasticity uses the HTML5 Web Audio API. It has been tested to work (at least) in recent versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari – including mobile devices (in the latest release).
I wrote Plasticity to treat my tinnitus (a phantom sound in my head). The idea was to re-wire the auditory cortex in my brain through repeated training in order to change my perception of the tinnitus sound. The name “Plasticity” refers to cortical plasticity – the ability of the cortex to reorganize in response to stimuli. Did Plasticity help my tinnitus? Well, I no longer have a tinnitus problem, though I am not sure to what extent Plasticity contributed to the improvement. If you have tinnitus (especially pure-tone tinnitus), you might as well give it a try. Here are some tips on how to use Plasticity for tinnitus.
Feedback request
If you’re using Plasticity for your tinnitus, don’t forget to post a comment below. I want to know how it went!
Hi,
Is it possible that the 2nd tone,when the pitches are the same,seems a little louder,therefore giving the impression that this is a change in pitch or is my brain “filling in” the information?
I’m very interested in finding out because I very often get this wrong and mistake the same (S) pitches for different (D) ones.
Thank you,
R
On the “Hardest” difficulty level, the volume is randomized; on lower levels, the volume of both tones is the same.
Hey Tomasz,
many thanks for your effort here!
I have a pure tone tinnitus (left side only at about 11khz). My second attempt already lead me to level 13… let’s see where this brings me.
Cornelius, thanks for writing and for your support!
Great website, thanks for keeping it up without ads!
Your tone generator somehow switches off my tinnitus for a very short period of time (like seconds..) and it is the first real silence since like forever. Thank you!
Also i like your game 🙂
I think it’s better to use speakers than headphones, because you need to bear in mind the wavelength of the tone as well as the frequency. I haven’t used this site yet, as I don’t have speakers connected to my computer at the moment and plan to. But a few years ago I did some experiments with a tone generator, messing with different tones in a room. I realized that as I moved around in the room the sounds changed, and it was because the wavelengths were hitting my eardrums at precise points. In fact I could feel the nodes of the waves move through my head from ear to ear, and I could tickle my eardrums once I located a precise node or antinode. So it’s worth using speakers so you can move away from them as needed.
Try it if you like. Pick a tone that has a short wavelength, such as F8 for example, has a frequency of 5587.65 Hz and a wavelength of 6.17 cm, which means you can move your head 6.17 away from or towards the source of the tone and hear the node and antinode move between each eardrum. It’s interesting stuff.
As I go through the tinnitus game a significant percentage have no sound at all. My answers then are variable right-wrong. My computer is a Macintosh Pro and the sound level is at maximum but many of your questions have no sound. This is a significant negative.
This is because built-in laptop speakers cannot produce low frequencies. The game was meant to be used with headphones or real speakers.
I find that the tones are played with too rapid a tempo. The first tone is cut very short and the second tone lasts much longer, which means you hear the tail of the tone on the second one and not on the first one. This makes them sound slightly different and leads to incorrect answers.
I think a better test would be to play both tones for the same duration.
Apart from that, I’m enjoying playing the exercise
They have the same duration.
I disagree,, you definitely do not hear the tail of the tone on the first example in the same way as you hear it on the second example
Could we get an extra hard mode with -_, –, _- three buttons?
Hello Tomasz,
I tried plasticity, neat little game. From what I could tell from your tone generator I am guessing my tinnitus rings in around 30 hz, but it is too subjective to tell. . . I see your minimum level is 49 hz for the test. . .
Anyway, I testing in the normal level 5 range for the plasticity test.
Suggestion: maybe you could track people by correlating their apparent tinnitus resonant frequency with their test results on plasticity.
Suggestion: it may be interesting to see if scientific researchers bother to correlate tone frequencies with different attributes of the patients, ie age, comorbidities, blood pressure, gastro problems, heart rate, Vitamin C, D levels, . . . among many others.
Great website.
Brian
These sites are incredibly interesting, and a huge, generous resource for actually testing one’s subjective experience. Much thanks for what you’ve put together!
I have identified, with your tone generator, that my tinnitus is in the range of 14 kHz–15 kHz generally as a triangle wave, but also often a pure sine wave.
This is the same regardless of mobile speakers (Samsung ZFold 3) vs earbuds.
My tinnitus alternates within that range seemingly at random, often initiating a switch upon detection of some other noise. The switch is instantaneous.
When I play tones which match the frequency of my tinnitus it causes a sort of “stuttering” or “crackling” noise as the two seem to affect my sensory detection in an alternating fashion, as if I hear/”hear” each tone with each peak/valley alternation of each respective wave. Like matching resonance? I don’t know how to describe it or why. It’s wild. Something like the square wave at 5 Hz, but very high-pitched in the 14kHz range.
But after playing tones in this 14 kHz range for a short time, my tinnitus is MUCH quieter for a good amount of time afterward. Interestingly, when I spend time playing tones in higher pitches further from my range (~400–6000 Hz), my tinnitus worsens considerably and is much louder for a long time afterwards (a few hours).
★ I am a 37 year old male, and my general range of capacity with sine & triangle waves seems to be within 25 Hz to somewhere around 18–18,5 kHz where it begins to just sound like ambient static white noise and is definitely a loss of tone by 19 kHz. (I can hear the Teen Buzz/Mosquito sonic weapon tone just fine.) This is regarding distances at a few inches to about 6 ft at the extremes of the range. Otherwise it’s normal as if playing music at a reasonable volume.
— I have to be *very* close to hear tones played through a speaker at 15,5 kHz and above, or ~40 Hz and below when volume is set to around 50% (though I know this part of testing is very subjective and hard to communicate). Like, within about 10 inches to 1 inch. Tones within that range are fine from a few feet to across my apartment all the way down to about 10 Hz.
— At short distance (arm’s length to maybe 6 ft) I can hear below 10 Hz sine wave fine, and anything as a square wave seems to be like 5-10 decibels higher and audible across almost the entire provided range. Not sure if that’s normal? I can hear square waves all the way to about 19,8 kHz where it abruptly stops. I think this may be a limitation of my phablet’s hardware.
— Any wave below about 40 Hz starts to sound like a staccato, being very, very fast around 40 Hz and slowing down to a throbbing 2/second at 1 Hz. Still audible in that short range just fine with volume set to 75%. Not sure if this is a hardware thing or a common phenomenon.
Thanks so much again and I hope this data is helpful or interesting for you!