why do we turn around and go "oooh" when we hear a bang behind us?

Indeed we are...no?

Aahh... I am not sure how many replies I could make, haha... but I'll add just this one more.

I guess a loud bang startle us because we were not expecting it - caught us by surprise and we may react by going "ooh", turn around subconsciously or we jump up a little off our chair.

If we relate this to computing, our ears would act like the microphone attached to the computer as an input device. If we speak into the microphone, our voice would be the metaphor (of the BANG). The microphone receives it and sends it to the computer - our ears receive the BANG and sends that information to our brain. If our brain is "programmed" to react by going "ooh" then that is exactly how we will react. If the computer is programmed to record and save then it'll do exactly that.

hmmms... I'm not sure how right I am in this but if subconscious reaction means reacting without giving much thought due to constant practice that results in doing a thing almost naturally - then would it not also mean that the computer could react "subconsciously" if it is made to do this one particular task too many times? haha. Oh well.. =)

" As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. "

^
is that the theory youre talking about ?


-
well, i dont think all of us turned around and made the 'oooh' sound.
my answer would be that, because we are programmed differently.
just like how computers are programmed, the only difference is that, we humans are not programmed by floppy or cds but we're programmed either by the environment, the people, our attitude and such [i think..]

for like when we are in a quiet environment, we tend to react 'subconciously' - like what LinJi mentioned, to the any noise made. we most probably would react to it due to curiosity. Its like a program installed into/onto our brain/body or something, but it doesnt apply only in quiet situation though.

or uhh, we just wanna know whats happening around us, like adapting to an environment or something..
we needa relate this with computing right..

ehm, i would say for like..
if your computer doesnt have language pack for japanese language, i dont think it can read japanese characters.
for those who didnt turn back/look around, i guess they are sleeping or just not mentally awake.

uh, I'd answer to the question you posted above, because it's the ''curiousity'' in everyone of us. When one hears a loud sound behind us, moreover in an almost quiet place.. it is almost impossible to ignore. Wells, unless like what paperclipp said above.. unless they were sleeping or not mentally awake. Haha..

Now, to relate this answer to computing.. I will say.. the loud bang was the act that send messages to our ears' neurons which then transmit the information to our brain and then subconsciously our brain send signals to our central nervous systems which process that information and send the response to our body which result our body to turn back to where the loud bang came from and our mouth to go 'woooo' ...

hmm, now why do I think my answer is not at all related to computing..
it's more biology now..

but the process of we going 'woooo' was more or less done ''computerly'' in ourselves eyy..

The reason we turn back or towards the source of the sound when we hear a loud bang is because if our instincts. We tend to associate those sounds with danger. They could be explosions , gunfire or something heavy might have fallen. This is a vital instinct as it could help save our lives.
Applying Darwin's theory of natural selection, organisms that do not have this trait will die because they are unable to save themselves from dangerous situations since they do not respond to the odd sounds which could serve as an early warning. Overtime the number of species in a population with that desirable trait increases until eventually all the individuals in that species have that trait. This is exactly what happened to humans. In the end you have a group of people consisting of mostly those that are curious about the sound and respond to it by searching for the source.
The same natural selection is still happening now. For example, if there is a landslide and there are 2 kinds of people living in a house that is about to be destroyed by the landslide. The first being the type of people who respond to odd sounds by seeking out their source and the other being the type that ignores the sound. Naturally, the one that seeks out the source of that sound will discover the dangerous situation he is in and thus escape while the other one will remain in the house and die.

As for the "ooo…" sound, that is a psychological thing. It varies from one person to another. Some people might say "ooo…," when they know where the sound originates from. Some might say "aaa…" and there might even be those that say "O.. I See…"

Relating this to a computer, the computer is constantly monitoring for an input. Once the input is attained, it will then process the input and determine what the output should be. After that, the output device will generate the desired output as commanded by the computer's processor.
Using a person as an analogy, we hear the loud sound with our ears. The ear converts the input into an information understandable by the brain and passes it to the brain for processing. After the brain processes the information, it determines what the output should be and passes the information to the muscle or organ that will generate the output. In this case it is the mouth which will produce the "ooo…" sound. (I omitted the details to make this short, it will be 3 pages long if I included them. This is already too long ). The "ooo…," sound is what our brain tells the mouth to produce.

Besides that, suddenly generating a loud sound can attract attention. That is why people are more likely to pay attention to you when you shout at them , provided they are not deaf. Although so, I do not recommend anyone to shout, you are more likely to be annoying them.

This action related to the brain and surrounding situation. First I will explain in scientific manner because these actions for your topic above are almost the same as the withdrawal reflex that we all learn during our A level biology. The reflex action involves the following pathway: Stimulus – receptors – sensory neurones – CNS (relay neurone)– Motor (effector) neurons – effector (muscle) – Response. I will try making simple as possible.

1. We can say that ‘bang’ sound as the stimulus.



2. This is detected and collected by the ear in the eardrum.



3. Nerve impulse is sent from the receptor along a sensory neurone to the spinal cord where it enters by the dorsal root. Bla..bla….This is just to detail. I will shorten the process.



4. The arrival of the impulse at the muscles causes it to contract, making the whole body to turn to the location where the bangs sound is. The muscle is the effectors and the body response to the ‘bang’ sound.



This is maybe boring to read and understand. I know. Even I am boring typing it. The better explanation is in my recent discovery and experiment. This related to the surrounding and a very fun fact.

Try this experiment to the individual that knew you in a crowded environment example the class room where it is in silent situation. Bring a equipment that that produce a large sound example a horn buzzer to resemble the ‘bang’ sound. Since we can only bring horn buzzer rather than a handgun to produce the ‘bang’ sound. You activate the Horn Buzzer at that moment. Remember to close your ear.

At first people will startle by your action and look at the source of the sound. You smile and do a stupid face. The peoples in the classroom will start to make a ‘ooohh!!!’ sound to embarrass you. This effect also affect the whole building that heard the noise and start to response by making ‘oooohhhh!!!’ sound without knowing what happen.

This is basic human response, It is contagious. Like when you throw a rock in a pond and make small circular wave and it began to make a larger circumference. This experiment can be done in different situation and give the same result of the ‘ooohh!!!’ sound. It also a good way to release the stress and gloomy moment at that time. Trust me it works.

I also supported the curiosity and the subconsciously theory.

good answers, renfoo and Faizal.

to summarise what you both said:

like all evolutionarily successful species, we are born with innate abilities to perceive and react to potential danger.

these abilities arise as the result of external signals (information) being input into and processed by our nervous systems, thereby causing other signals (information) being sent to our motor systems (voice, muscles, etc).

hence, we are (biological) information processors. we are biological computers.

for more about this, see http://openocw.org/science/living-computers/

PS
i already did renfoo's experiment, when i played you the movie clip featuring part of Chas and Dave's comic song called "rabbit" - to rabbit is a slang expression, meaning to chatter endlessly about unimportant things. the lyrics of the whole song are very funny.

I did not turn around immediately once the bang was heard. I did not go "oooh" either at first. What made me curious was why most of my classmates turned back and went "oooh". So I did turned back after few seconds after the bang. Not because of the fact that I heard the bang, but to keep up with the rest to check what happened so I would not feel left out. Who knows there might be a treasure box falling from nowhere right into CLT 1.17. I would have regret if I did not turn around to take a glimpse. Well, that shows I am awake in the class. Or it is just everybody behaves or reacts differently. If there would be an explosion or anything hazardous, I guess I might be too late to even save my own life. That shows I am that slow. There are very interesting biological facts posted here on the forum itself relating us(human) to the computer. I would not be able to answer here in a biological way because I did not take biology in O, A level. Please do correct me if I do cause any confusion to you. Or I might be wrong.

When the bang was heard, the ears of us collect these sound waves that were spreading through the air. And these sound waves are actually the vibrations caused by noise(the bang) when something(can be anything) collided or knocked against another. These vibrations are then funneled into our ear canal by our outer ears. As the vibrations move into your middle ear, they hit your eardrum and cause it to vibrate. So there is a chain reaction of vibrations. Hold on there!!!

Our eardrum then vibrates the three smallest bones in our body. The first is the hammer, then the anvil and finally, the stirrup. The stirrup passes the vibrations into a coiled tube in the inner ear called the cochlea. The fluid-filled cochlea contains thousands of hair-like nerve endings called cilia. When the stirrup causes the fluid in the cochlea to vibrate, the cilia move. The cilia change the vibrations into messages that are sent to the brain via the auditory nerve.The
auditory nerve carries messages from 25,000 receptors in our ear to our brain. Our brain then makes sense of the messages and tells us what sounds we are hearing. I need a break. I get these facts from somewhere and I am being honest here.

When comes to computer, it is more technical. The input is monitored, processed/analyzed in order to determine what is the output. So here, the input might be the noise. And the output would be shown on the monitor screen saying, "What happened? You should join the rest and take a look!" So we do behave almost similar to the computer. Instead of us being biological, the computer has its input device, output device, processors and all. Computer runs only with electricity. Is it save to say? And we, the humans, live only when our heart still beat, pump the blood throughout our body. What differ is the components in us and the computer. So we function almost similarly to the computer or the other way round.

Hello..
I've posted my answers earlier on but i don't know why its gone. Its okay, here i will post my answers again.

Why do we turn around when we hear a loud bang sound? Because we are curiousity. Human are always curious of something. Furthermore i will just answer some of the (sub-) questions given above.

a) What kind of noises make you turn around?
- Loud bang sound will obviously make me turn around especially in a very quiet place and where everyone is concentrate doing a particular work. Just like that day during class, everyone was concentrate listen to what Mr Brown explain then suddenly a loud bang sound come from the back of the class. Of course everyone will turn and find out what and where does the sound come from.

b) What's the difference between biology and computing?
- Here i would say Biology is the scientific law that control people's life whereas for computing is the activity of using and developing computer technology, computer hardware and software.

c) What do biology and computing have in common?
- For this question i don't know what they both have in common. Sorry.

I find the questions on Dodo species quite interesting. i know there's an animal called dodo (thank you pokemon for extra knowledge haha) but i never knew it was extinct. Googled it up for informations and found out that..


"...the dodo was entirely fearless of people, and this, in combination with its flightlessness, made it easy prey.- wikipedia."


It seems that they do not respond to danger unlike humans do so other animals such as pigs and monkeys destroyed dodo eggs and ofcourse no extinction will be complete without the act of human who slaughtered thousands of them.

The Dodo species is just like a malfunctioned computer. They can't process a danger input to produce a fear output. Hence, it became extinct.

Our hearing sense is sensitive, especially to any sudden noise in a silent environment. It is a natural instinct, just like animals for example the antelope. Once it hears a tiny crack of a twig, it will raise its head and be alert for lioness stalking it among the thick, dry savanna grass. As for us humans, we turn our heads and see what's all the commotion. It is our curiousity to know where is the source of the noise. It can be said that we are 'busybody' and we like to know who's getting into trouble..