Since ancient times, there has been a culture in Japan that perceives the “sound of insects” as being elegant, and there are many documents overlaying the feelings and emotions of people. However, the latest research shows that only Japanese and Polynesians perceive the sound of insects as voices.
The right brain is called the sensory brain and processes music, mechanical sounds, and noises, while the left brain is called the theoretical brain and is responsible for the intellectual part of the brain, such as understanding human speech and language.
The left brain, called the theoretical brain, processes music, mechanical sounds, and noises, while the left brain is responsible for the logical part, such as understanding speech, language, and the voice.
Westerners process the sound of insects in the right side of the brain, the sensory brain, just like mechanical sounds and noises, while Japanese listen to the sound in the left side of the brain, the theoretical brain. In other words, Japanese listen to “the sound of insects” as “the voice of insects.
In short, Westerners live and listen to the “sound of insects” in various situations in nature without being conscious of it, as long as they feel it is just a usual noisy noise.
However, Japanese and Polynesians listen to the “sound of insects” with their left and theoretical brains just as they do to human voices, so they cannot just dismiss it as noise. They sense meaning.
The reason for this lies in the characteristics of language. Japanese and Polynesian are vowel-centered languages, while many other languages are consonant-centered.
Japanese and Polynesian people process both vowels/consonants in the left brain, while people from other languages receive vowels in the right brain and then process consonants in the left brain.
Therefore, “insect sounds” which are natural sounds similar to vowels, are also perceived by the left brain as language. In the same way, various nature sounds such as “waves” “wind” “sound of rain” and “murmuring of a stream” are also heard by the Japanese in the left brain. These characteristics are found only among the Japanese and Polynesians in the world, while the neighboring Koreans and Chinese are Western (right-brain) types.
The fact that the Japanese process the “sound of insects” with their left brain while Westerners process it as noise with their right brain is related to the cultural difference in the first place. Westerners have a sense that insects = harm, and they perceive the sound of insects as noise.
Japanese people have a culture of feeling the seasons and emotions by listening to “the voice of insects” since childhood, so there is a cultural grounding in the left brain to feel “the voice of insects as much as the sound of people.
It is a bit strange for Japanese people to be told that only Japanese and Polynesians hear the “voice of insects” but I would like to continue to cherish the Japanese sentiment that we can feel summer with the sound of cicadas and autumn with the soothing sound of a c!
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