I have my own personal experience with psychoacoustics as I had hyperacusis while growing up. My hearing is still sensitive, however, I no longer experience the extreme effects that I did when I was younger. My main memories of it began during morning assembly at primary school when during the assembly singing it sounded like an extremely resonant filter kicked in on a certain frequency which caused me to cry and panic from the pain. After this, I tried to avoid car/fire alarms and other loud noises.
I also tried to avoid loud/busy crowds as my ears would be extremely sensitive and I’d find it overwhelming. I remember that many people having conversations at once, in particular, would overwhelm me as I could hear all the conversations at once and would try to follow along with them all. This is still the case today and I find myself very aware of background noises.
Having hyperacusis had a dramatic effect on me growing up, one of the main things being my dislike of loud public places leading to me becoming quite agoraphobic. This also leads to me having a different social experience with music on the whole. I’ve only recently started going to see live music.
Since I was very young I’ve also struggled with tinnitus at night as, much like background noise, I can’t help but focus on it. Because of this, I grew up listening to music or audiobooks a lot at night, with the intent to fall asleep to them.
I also suffer from migraines which increase my sensitivity to sounds.
All of the following experiences have led me to naturally become interested in ’deep listening’ to the point that I would do it before I even knew about it conceptually. It’s also why I’m more focused on the introspective ‘internal’ effect of sound than the externality of dancing (though my enjoyment of singing might not align with this?). I believe it also has an effect on how I listen to music. When listening to albums for the first time I often choose to listen to them at night in the dark. This is also the way I listen to more ambient and ‘experimental’ music, whereas, when I’m in public places, such as on the tube, I listen to more rhythmical and structured music that I’m already familiar with, though, this is as much due to the ability of the music to cut through the loud sounds (I do not own active noise-cancelling headphones.)