Does your hearing get better if you close your eyes?

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I just noticed this in school....If I close my eyes, my hearing gets more sensitive, and my senses get more 'overflowed". does that happen to anyone else? it would explain why things always hurt my ears more when i close my eyes. seems wierd, though.

This sometimes happens to me, if I'm dozing off and there's background noise, the noise tends to get 'louder'. Which is rather annoying, given that I find it very difficult to sleep if there's any noise at all.

If I use one sense at time the perception is enhanced.

Yes it does - well, the hearing itself is probably just the same, but I can focus on it better without the distraction of vision. I often close my eyes when I'm trying to listen to what somebody's saying to me, and when I sing I tend to instinctively shut my eyes so I can monitor the quality, though some people seem to think it's bad form to do that.

I can also think more clearly against a background of complete silence, and I suspect it's the same thing going on - removing sensory input allows better focus on what remains.

Today I was sleepy in class, and as I shut my eyes I experienced the same thing, but I tend to forget it, so I reexperience it over and over again

Has sound of rightness to it.

is this an AS thing or human thing?

Human, but probably stronger in Aspies, I guess.

When I was younger I always had issues with visual destractions while trying to tune into a specific point. We were at this talk at a museum once, and as much as I was interested in the topic, I had to keep asking my mum what the speaker person had said because I couldn't tune out all the destractions around me and focus on one point. I was taken for a hearing test after that which of course came back fine.

I think it's a human sensory thing as much as an AS thing, when one sense is compromised, another will make up for it.

yeah! i dont hear stuff cause i get distracted too X/.
btw, is that you in your profile pic?

Agreeing that this is pretty much a human thing. It makes sense in a way--if you don't have to process all five of your senses at once, you have leftover brainpower to concentrate on a different one. That's the reason I do it, at least--closing my eyes while listening to music so that I can hear the lyrics and whatnot.

I think I've heard where people who were born blind have better hearing or are more sensitive to touch than people with sight.

This is a very interesting topic. I experience this too, as well as needing complete silence to concentrate. I always assumed it is part of executive dysfunction which is more a typically ADD or ADHDish problem. I'm not saying ASDians don't have it too, but it's more text book ADD/ADHD thing. The inability to 'attend' to one stimuli over another, it all comes flooding into the brain at once and the brain has no way to filter it.

Apparently this is not an NT thing. They also used to think this same phenominum is what was responsible for Schitzopheria.
(SP)

It also my have something to do with auditory processing disorder. I think the term they use is forground discimination. But that is only not being able to decipher 2 or more lots of auditory information at once. Like if you are in a mall and can only hear the white noise when you try to hear what a shop keeper is saying to you or when you try to use your phone.

I have also noticed that young ASdian kids often have trouble mixing more than one sensory modality at a time. One of my sons could sing at preschool, but if he needed to do some hand actions or whole body movements at the same time as the singing he couldn't manage it even with pracitce. I also think thats why the whole"look at me when I talk to you" idea is not usually popular with ASD youngsters...............If they look at you they are unable to process what is being said. If they are allowed to look away they hear perfectly.

Also reading music and playing at the same time, the reason many ASdian have such good memory when it comes to remembering music. They often need to remember the whole score of music to play it because they cannot actually read it off the page and play an instument at the same time. My oldest son was like this but now he can do it easily.

This is completely normal. Your brain has strict processing limits and by closing your eyes, you are cutting out about 80% of the load.

My auditory processing improves when I close my eyes.

NLP seems to confirm that most people's preferred information intake is NOT auditory.

I really struggle with auditory processing which is tough in the business (social) world.

When I am in conversations that are actually two way, I sometimes pause the the speaker and close my eyes.

I can then 'replay' what he or she has just said and everything seems to fit together and make sense.

This happened recently during a meeting with a lawyer. He was quoting legal regulations, in list form, from three different areas of regulation.

They overlapped and my objective was to understand the practical function of these rules in where they overlapped.

I remember my head was spinning before I shut my eyes.

It only took me about 10 seconds to figure it out after I had shut my eyes.

It was a lot like the scene in Matrix 1, where 'Trinity' gets a download of how to fly a helicopter.............except that she looks better in leather

I know this is weird, but I feel like I hear worse if my glasses are off. I just think it might be one of my psycho-things I do, like I can't see sh*t so I just give up on my sense entirely until I am able to see again. I'm only really touch sensitive all though my hearing and sense of smell are better than almost everyone I know.