animal hearing

Even babies are tuned-in to sound design

From Science News: Re-creating womb sounds perks preemies’ attention

They might not be the most demanding clients in the world, but I think it's fair to say that this is a pretty good reminder of just how powerful context-aware design can be. As the study's author (Harvard neuroscientist Amir Lahav) noted: 

Mothers’ voices and heartbeats are “part of the original recipe for how we should cook premature babies up to full maturation”

A related article (also from Science News) reminds us that sound =/= noise: Too little noise is bad for newborns in intensive care