Conference PaperPDF Available

The Impacts of Binaural Beats

Authors:
The Impacts of Binaural Beats
Amala Rajan,
Asst. Prof. (CIS)
Dubai Women’s,
Higher Colleges of Technology
arajan@hct.ac.ae
Vishwesh Akre,
Asst. Prof. (CIS)
Dubai Women’s,
Higher Colleges of Technology
vakre@hct.ac.ae
Nasser Nassiri,
Asst. Prof. (CIS)
Dubai Women’s,
Higher Colleges of Technology
nnassiri@hct.ac.ae
Asma Hashim,
Student (CIS)
Dubai Women’s,
Higher Colleges of Technology
H00128546@hct.ac.ae
Halima Walid,
Student (CIS)
Dubai Women’s,
Higher Colleges of Technology
H00283420@hct.ac.ae
Muna Ahmed,
Student (CIS)
Dubai Women’s,
Higher Colleges of Technology
H00086451@hct.ac.ae
Abstract
Binaural beats are a brainwave entrainment technology
designed to put your brain into the same activity state
as when you are meditating using traditional methods.
This research includes defining Binaural Beats, proving
their existence, listing the positive and negative impacts
of Binaural Beats, and assessing the existing UAE and
UK cyberlaws, to evaluate the existence of regulations
and laws addressing the use of Binaural Beats. This
research includes the impacts of Binaural Beats in the
Healthcare, Education, Entertainment, IT Security, and
Creativity fields. Moreover, this research does not
address digital drug devices that are meant to replace
routine medical tablets found at pharmacies and
medicine factories. Though there is no huge amount of
primary data, it has significant amount of analysis of
secondary data from peer reviewed articles and thus the
findings have a credible ground. As less research has
been done in this field, the results could be of value to
researchers to extend its findings further.
Keywords: Binaural Beats, Digital Drugs, Neurofeedback,
Frequency Treatment, E-Dosing, Electronic Drugs, Audio
Drugs
Introduction
This research evolves around investigating about the
concept of Binaural Beats, their existence, their usage
fields, their positive and negative impacts over human
healthcare, learning process, entertainment-wise,
alleged addiction, and IT security, the need to control
their usage. Binaural Beats are defined as subjective
hearing sensations, which occur when one of tone
signals is applied to one ear, and the other one, with a
slightly different frequency is applied to the second ear.
A listener then receives a resultant sound with an
amplitude which changes with a frequency equal to the
difference of frequency of applied signals." [I]
Furthermore, there have been contradictory researches
that argued about the existence of Binaural Beats, one
of which, is an Arabic book issued by Dubai Police, in
the UAE, which referred to Binaural Beats as Digital
Drugs that are considered an illusion and a lie [III]
however, the same book emphasized on the need to
launch awareness campaigns that makes the
community and youth aware about the dangers of
Digital Drugs! [II]. Therefore, this research will prove
the existence of Binaural Beats, also referred to as
"Digital Drugs" [II] or "Neurofeedback" [III], and how
they lead to a proven brain activity [IV] Hence, there is
a need to fill up the knowledge gap due to the absence
of Binaural Beats usage control regulations and laws
and some of them would be proposed in this research
paper.
Research Objectives
The research aims to prove the existence of Binaural
Beats, their impacts, and the need for controlling the
use of Binaural Beats. In addition to prove the existence
of Binaural Beats, it will try to identify the positive and
negative impacts of Binaural Beats in Healthcare,
Education, Entertainment, IT Security, and Creativity
Fields, and assesses the ways to control the use of
Binaural Beats.
The study revolves around two research questions: -
RQ1 What are the positive and negative impacts of
Binaural Beats?
RQ2 Is there a need to control the use of Binaural
Beats?
978-1-5386-7147-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 353
The Fifth HCT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS (ITT 2018), Dubai, UAE, Nov., 28 - 29, 2018
Literature Review
xWhat are Binaural Beats
Binaural beats are subjective hearing sensations, which
occur when one of the sound frequencies is applied to
one ear and a different frequency is applied to the
second ear. A listener listens to a resultant sound with
an amplitude that changes with a frequency that equals
the difference of the two frequencies [V]. Digital drugs
use music to impose a similar effect as physical drugs,
like cannabis, cocaine, MDMA, or Crystal Meth that
are well-known for being offered by some illegal
websites, where it produces a state of ecstasy in the
minds of listeners, by using the sound waves that are
capable of altering the brainwaves, and the mental state
of the listener [V]. The official Binaural Beats website
is named, the iDoser.com, which pioneers the Binaural
Beats industry as a safe and an effective channel to
provide access to experimenting binaural audio doses.
Binaural Beats history goes back to the research
conducted at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York City,
in 1973, where the research concluded that “it was
found that when the frequency of each tone was less
than 1500 Hz and the difference between the waves was
lower than 40Hz, our brain detected the phase variation
between the frequencies and tried to reconcile that
difference, and in this process, the brain started to
resonate a third signal that emerges between these two
wave-frequencies, and the activities of the brain can be
controlled [IV]
xImpacts on Healthcare
The human brain is divided into two lobes - the right
and left lobes. When applying sound vibrations that are
different in each ear, then, the brain tries correcting the
vibrational acoustic musical frequency, because there is
a relationship amongst what humans hear and watch,
and the consciousness of the mind. For example, people
of Sufi sects reach to subconscious and even feel and
act drunk due to listening to certain types of music.
Also, an American expert explains the neurological and
psychological effects of digital drugs, and how they
endanger the lives and health of its users, where he
elaborates that because of drugs that are dependent on
the technique of ear drumming, that two frequencies are
aired in each ear, which leads to inducing the brain to
generate slow alpha waves that cause relaxation to
experiment psychiatric patients. While fast beta waves
cause alertness and increased concentration for
subjects, or it could also drive the recipient to feel a
state of unconsciousness accompanied with the loss of
physical, psychological and mental balance, due to the
excessive use of stimulating sounds. It can also lead to
long-term sleep disorders, or anxiety that is similar to
using steroids [VI].
xImpacts on Education
Research article titles "A portable binaural beat device
for learning stimulation", [VII] states the results of
using the portable binaural beats device indicated that
it had produced beta level frequencies of a binaural beat
with a 15 Hz frequency, when setting the device with a
500 Hz frequency in one ear, and a 515 Hz frequency
at the other ear, which lead to a brain stimulation that
was documented via EEG analysis. The evident brain
stimulation was relating to learning, in which the
researchers believed that the portable binaural beats
device is convenient for enhancing learning in
chemical safety training or otherwise, anywhere where
the device can be carried out by the person.
Additionally, the most important findings of the
reviewed paper include concluding that brainwaves
with different frequencies lead to different brain
stimulation in different locations. Where, Gamma beats
with 40 Hz frequency and greater, and Beta beats with
13-40 Hz frequencies lead to improved High metal
activity, perception, problem solving, consciousness,
motor functions, short term memory, active
concentration, arousal and cognition, anxious thinking,
and focus-working state.
Another research titled "Binaural auditory
Beats, a promising therapy and cognitive
enhancement", Liza Claire Simmons April, 2016,
suggested that Binaural “beats are created by the
olivary nucleus in the brain stem, which perceives the
difference between the two tones and creates the beat
frequency that people can hear. This phenomenon is
known as binaural auditory beats (BAB)” [VIII].
Relatively, high school and college students who used
traditional drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall to
enhance their cognitive ability, have started using
BABs (Binaural Auditory Beats) instead to improve
their focusing levels. The study found significant
improvement of working memory capacity for
participants listening to the BABs” (Liza Claire
Simmons, 2016). Thus, specific brain activity relating
to the enhancing the learning process of high school
and college students had been proven through proven
scientific experiments.
xImpacts on Entertainment
Moving on to Entertainment, iDoser is one of the
pioneers in the field of using binaural beats doses for a
stimulating experience.
978-1-5386-7147-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 354
The Fifth HCT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS (ITT 2018), Dubai, UAE, Nov., 28 - 29, 2018
The videos available on YouTube are just an excerpt
from the actual dosage of the binaural beats rhythms
provided by iDoser. The binaural beats on YouTube
aim of synchronizing the brain waves of the listener, to
provide him or her a soothing and relaxing experience.
It is claimed that the right dosages are up to 80%
effective according to other peer reviewed sources. [II]
Binaural Beats are intended to trigger individuals to
think about the projected sounds, while feeling relaxed,
which automatically channels their perception of the
music in the direction of relaxation. However, YouTube
videos are unable to completely generate the desired
experiences of listening to binaural beats, since these
videos are not played using instruments that can deliver
different frequencies to the two different ears [IX].
xImpacts on Creativity
There exists a correlation between binaural beats and
their effect on the creativity of individuals. Binaural
Beats have different frequency wavelengths in which
individuals are exposed to, where the individual’s
neurotransmission at the neuronal phase reaches a
locking point by stimulating it. Studies have established
that there is a correlation between elevated levels of
dopamine and creativity, by exhibiting that sometimes
schizophrenic patients show high creativity, where their
condition is related to high levels of dopamine in the
body. Binaural beats may be triggering increasing
creativity levels, as they are assumed to do the same
through a drug-like effect. A study suggests that
binaural beats are effective in enhancing the creative
processes for divergent thinking of the individual. [X].
xImpacts on IT Security
A study on Binaural Beats on IT Security [IV]
perceived Binaural Beats as social engineering tools
that can affect user's behaviors and pose substantial
cyber threats. Relatively, the research measures human
responses to auditory stimulation, thus, considering
binaural beats, or digital drugs as emerging cyber
threats. However, not much elaboration about how
Binaural Beats are posing direct cyber threats over the
network was mentioned in the paper reviewed.
Additionally, not much resources addressing the cyber
threats related to Binaural Beats exist, which is
considered, a concluded knowledge gap as well.
Logically putting it, since not much research has been
conducted with regards to impact of Binaural Beats on
IT security, it is only consequential that no cyber laws
addressing Binaural Beats exist till the date.
xBinaural Beats Cyber Laws
This section reviews resources related to cyber laws
articles of UAE, Council of Europe and UK, and other
articles addressing issues such as controlling usage of
Binaural Beats and legalizing Binaural Beats usage.
The articles of the UAE's federal decree law number 5
of 2012 on Combating Cybercrimes had nothing
related directly or indirectly to Binaural Beats. The
convention on cybercrime of the Council of Europe
based on the European Treaty Series, number 185,
issued at Budapest, in 2001, had nothing related
directly or indirectly to Binaural Beats as well. The
same is applicable for UK's Computer Misuse Act,
which was recently updated on the 13th of February
2017, as there are no articles whatsoever addressing
Binaural Beats in any way. These researchers could not
find cyber law articles addressing Binaural Beats in any
way in UAE, UK, or any of the Council of European
Countries. However, a research that addresses the issue
of I-Doser Application in smartphones categorized
Binaural Beats as narcotic [XI]. This paper also
emphasized on the dangers that Binaural Beats would
pose on the future of national security based on the
findings of "normative research using statute,
conceptual and comparative approaches" based
research [XI]. Eventually, the writer recommended the
need of producing policies and laws that define
Binaural Beats as narcotic and take legal action against
those who indulge in it or provide it to others [XI].
Data Collection and Analysis
Above section of Literature review was sufficient to
provide answers for the 1st research question: -
RQ1 What are the positive and negative impacts
of Binaural Beats?
However, in order to answer the second research
question, it was needed to meet an expert in the field.
This was due to the fact that less research has been
published on this topic especially addressing the
control of use of Binaural Beats. To find an expert on
this topic was extremely challenging, however, the
researchers were successful in identifying a person
having experience in Binaural Beats, and who
participated in a number of conferences addressing
Binaural Beats, and currently working as the Vice
President of the Family Village in Al-Khawaneej,
Dubai. The interview comprised of 6 questions
pertaining to the RQ2: -
RQ2 Is there a need to control the use of Binaural
Beats?
978-1-5386-7147-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 355
The Fifth HCT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS (ITT 2018), Dubai, UAE, Nov., 28 - 29, 2018
The interview questions are summarized in table
below:-
Q.No
Question
IQ1
How can we prove that listening to digital
drugs leads to addiction?
IQ2
Are there statistics on the number of
addicts? If yes, in which country in the
world?
IQ3
Are there hospitals that treat patients with
digital drug addictions? Why does the UAE
psychiatric hospitals do not know anything
about Digital Drugs?
IQ4
Are there countries utilizing digital drugs in
the school curriculum to stimulate the focus
and attention of the students?
IQ5
Is there a digital drug to stimulate creativity?
IQ6
Are there countries that have passed laws on
digital drugs?
Table I Interview Questions
The data collected from the interview has been
discussed below :-
IQ1
IQ2
spontaneously. T
. Most gov
IQ3
To treat patients with digital drugs
addictions, and spread the awareness about it,
therapy means of the addiction on drugs
digital need to be explored. Aprovision in
needed in the cyber law to criminalize the use
of these drugs. Training on the means of
controlling the use of digital drugs is needed.
It is required to block locations which
propagate the use of digital drugs. It is
imperative to launch awareness campaigns
that are innovative and suits the young
population, and it is also needed to establish
communication with families and training
them on imposing a type of self-censorship
within their children.
IQ4
There seems to be no published or
propagated information about this.
IQ5
There seems to be no published or
propagated information about this
IQ6
Saudi Arabia raised the alert level to limit
access to websites promoting digital drugs.
Their Ministry of Health approved the
banning of access to information of this type
in a record time.
Discussions
Based on the literature review and the findings of this
research, it was concluded that Binaural Beats do exist.
Their existence was proven through a scientific
experiment using EEG readings, as a brain activity was
recorded, when subjects were exposed to two different
frequencies at each ear at the same time, in which the
brain acted to let the subject listen to the difference of
the two frequencies [I]. Also, Binaural Beats files were
found online over the YouTube website, where the
official Binaural Beats website was banned in UAE.
It was concluded that some of the positive impacts of
Binaural Beats include attention enhancement,
relaxation, increasing the focus level, increasing the
intelligent quotient, increasing the immune system
resistance, decreasing the cortisol level, initiating deep
sleep, enhancing the memory, improving learning
skills, solving problems skills, and controlling. While
some of the negative impacts of Binaural Beats include
extreme impact e.g. caused a death case in Saudi
Arabia, some of the names of the files are promoting
unethical values and physical drugs names, the side
effects of the brainwave activity resulting from
experiencing binaural beats is unknown, individualized
binaural beats have different effects on listeners, and
the excessive use of headphones increases the risk of a
hearing loss.
Since only Saudi Arabia and Lebanon experienced a
wide spread of Binaural Beats amongst their
communities, there were initial precautionary measures
that were taken in other Arab countries, which included
conducting researches about digital drugs, which was
the case in UAE and Algeria. Moreover, another
government based reactive action was having the
Telecommunications and Regulations authority ban the
official website, named iDoser on a national level in
each country. There were also directives to ban any
websites and media channels that are selling or
marketing Binaural Beats. As a proactive measure,
there is an immense need to propose regulations that
address the creation, distribution, usage, selling, and
marketing Binaural Beats.
978-1-5386-7147-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 356
The Fifth HCT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS (ITT 2018), Dubai, UAE, Nov., 28 - 29, 2018
Conclusion
This research has proved the existence of Binaural
Beats that are sometimes referred to as Digital Drugs,
defined it, and listed its positive and negative impacts
on fields of Healthcare, Education, Entertainment,
Creativity, and IT Security. Then, an evaluation of the
existing control measures on the usage of Binaural
Beats was conducted to assess the need for proposing
any extra regulations and measures. Researching this
topic was very challenging as very less research related
to the research scope was found. Also, it was
challenging to identify subject matter experts, because
Binaural Beats are not much popular in UAE. The
limitation of this study is that it does not have a
significant amount of primary data, where it was mostly
based on analyzing secondary data that were gathered
during the digital research of related resources.
Moreover, the future directions regarding researches
related to Binaural Beats should focus on, proving that
exposure to Binaural Beats leads to addiction, by
depending entirely on primary data of experiments,
surveys, and interviews, where experiments need to be
conducted in physical drug rehabilitation centers; to
evaluate whether Binaural Beats have the same effect
of physical drugs as alleged or not. Also, researches
about the side effects and the level of the brain activity
that is produced from listening to Binaural Beats need
to be conducted to evaluate whether such a brain
activity leads to the death of the subjects?
References
[I] Kasprzak, C. (2011). Influence on EEG Readings.
Retrieved from The Grommet,
https://assets.thegrommet.com/
[II] Jasim Khalil Mirza. (2016). Digital Drugs. Dubai:
General Command of Dubai Police, General
Department of Community Happiness, Security
Awareness Department.
[III] Trevisan, A. A., Attard, F., Cavallari, P., Caruana, N.,
& Micallef, R. (2015). Real-time sonified
neurofeedback stimulation for the management and
relaxation of patients on the autism spectrum. Brain
Stimulation Journal, 154.
[IV] Pratt, H., Starr, A., Michalewski, H. J., Dimitrijevic,
A., Bleich, N., & Mittelman, N. (2009). Cortical
evoked potentials to an auditory illusion: Binaural
beats. Retrieved from Clinph Journal:
http://www.clinph-journal.com/
[V] Rajarao, S. (2016, July 2). The World of Cyber Drugs.
Retrieved from THCLabs: http://thclabs.org
[VI] Maysum Layla. (2017). Arabic Research Titled Digital
Drugs: the evolvement of a new addiction via the
Internet. Algeria: AlManhal.
[VII] Veerinyaorn Luangboriboon, S. T. (2013, June). A
portable binaural beat device. Retrieved from MED:
http://www.med.cmu.ac.th/
[VIII] Liza Claire Simmons. (2016, April 27).
Binaural auditory beats, a promising therapy and
cognitive enhancement. Wheaton Journal of
Neuroscience Senior Seminar Research, 8. Retrieved
from https://digitalrepository.wheatoncollege.edu/
[IX] i-Doser. (2016). IDosingFan. Retrieved from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/IDosingFan
[X] Reedijk, S., Bolders, A., & Hommel, B. (2013,
November 14). The impact of binaural beats on
creativity. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(786).
doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00786
[XI] Puluhulawa, J. (2016). I-Doser Application in
Smartphones, A Public Anxiety. Arena Hukum, 368-
385.
978-1-5386-7147-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 357
The Fifth HCT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS (ITT 2018), Dubai, UAE, Nov., 28 - 29, 2018
... Међу ауторима данас, постоје опречна мишљења о томе, да ли се овај феномен може и "злоупотребити". Бинаурални битови су технологија забаве можданих таласа, дизајнирани да мозак ставе у исти степен активности као и када се медитира употребом традиционалних метода (Rajan 2018). Истиче се да је i-Dosing својеврсна аудио илузија. ...
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In 1839, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that two constant tones, emitted at slightly different frequencies at each ear, conjured the listener to register this as a fast rhythm, and this phenomenon was called binaural beats. Among the authors today, there are conflicting opinions about whether this phenomenon can be "abused". Binaural beats are brainwave entertainment technology, designed to put the brain into the same activity level as when meditating using traditional methods. Binaural beats affect mood, concentration and sleep by modifying brain waves based on the brain's response patterns to dichotomous and different frequencies. Therapy by music, as well as the use of certain specially arranged sounds to relieve anxiety, stress or health problems such as high blood pressure, are not unknown and are even widely accepted and used in different branches of medicine. However, when scientists, and companies in particular, point out that binaural beats, used in a certain way, can affect the state of consciousness and behaviour, referring to the feelings created by drug use, then it raises serious questions. Digital drugs or binaural beats that support the creation of a feeling similar to that of drug abuse, is a phenomenon about which less is known, Considering that, especially the young population, is already being treated today. Medical treatments have been created to get rid of addiction to the Internet, smartphones and similar technologies, it is clear that any innovation, like medicine, can also have the possibility of abuse. Bearing this in mind, binaural tones created and used to intentionally influence the mood and flow of thoughts (not part of medical treatment under professional supervision) can and must be viewed as a security threat in socio-pathological phenomena.
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Human creativity relies on a multitude of cognitive processes, some of which are influenced by the neurotransmitter dopamine. This suggests that creativity could be enhanced by interventions that either modulate the production or transmission of dopamine directly, or affect dopamine-driven processes. In the current study we hypothesized that creativity can be influenced by means of binaural beats, an auditory illusion that is considered a form of cognitive entrainment that operates through stimulating neuronal phase locking. We aimed to investigate whether binaural beats affect creative performance at all, whether they affect divergent thinking, convergent thinking, or both, and whether possible effects may be mediated by the individual striatal dopamine level. Binaural beats were presented at alpha and gamma frequency. Participants completed a divergent and a convergent thinking task to assess two important functions of creativity, and filled out the Positive And Negative Affect Scale—mood State questionnaire (PANAS-S) and an affect grid to measure current mood. Dopamine levels in the striatum were estimated using spontaneous eye blink rates (EBRs). Results showed that binaural beats, regardless of the presented frequency, can affect divergent but not convergent thinking. Individuals with low EBRs mostly benefitted from alpha binaural beat stimulation, while individuals with high EBRs were unaffected or even impaired by both alpha and gamma binaural beats. This suggests that binaural beats, and possibly other forms of cognitive entrainment, are not suited for a one-size-fits-all approach, and that individual cognitive-control systems need to be taken into account when studying cognitive enhancement methods.
Article
To define brain activity corresponding to an auditory illusion of 3 and 6Hz binaural beats in 250Hz or 1000Hz base frequencies, and compare it to the sound onset response. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded in response to unmodulated tones of 250 or 1000Hz to one ear and 3 or 6Hz higher to the other, creating an illusion of amplitude modulations (beats) of 3Hz and 6Hz, in base frequencies of 250Hz and 1000Hz. Tones were 2000ms in duration and presented with approximately 1s intervals. Latency, amplitude and source current density estimates of ERP components to tone onset and subsequent beats-evoked oscillations were determined and compared across beat frequencies with both base frequencies. All stimuli evoked tone-onset P(50), N(100) and P(200) components followed by oscillations corresponding to the beat frequency, and a subsequent tone-offset complex. Beats-evoked oscillations were higher in amplitude with the low base frequency and to the low beat frequency. Sources of the beats-evoked oscillations across all stimulus conditions located mostly to left lateral and inferior temporal lobe areas in all stimulus conditions. Onset-evoked components were not different across stimulus conditions; P(50) had significantly different sources than the beats-evoked oscillations; and N(100) and P(200) sources located to the same temporal lobe regions as beats-evoked oscillations, but were bilateral and also included frontal and parietal contributions. Neural activity with slightly different volley frequencies from left and right ear converges and interacts in the central auditory brainstem pathways to generate beats of neural activity to modulate activities in the left temporal lobe, giving rise to the illusion of binaural beats. Cortical potentials recorded to binaural beats are distinct from onset responses. Brain activity corresponding to an auditory illusion of low frequency beats can be recorded from the scalp.
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