Phantom sounds in silence are the faint ringing, buzzing or humming that many people with normal hearing notice after a few minutes in a very quiet room. The effect is named after Heller and Bergman, who described it in 1953. Later researchers read it as a sign that everyday sound normally masks a tinnitus-like perception.

Why it matters for tinnitus

It is part of the human evidence that less sound coming in can, on its own, produce a phantom sound, the starting point of the leading accounts of how tinnitus is generated. It also fits tinnitus that seems loudest at bedtime, once competing sounds have gone, as sleeping with tinnitus and tinnitus when lying down describe. It is also consistent with the common advice, given by the NHS among others, not to sit in total silence.

What the evidence says

The evidence is thin: a handful of small experiments, mostly in young adults with normal hearing sitting in silence for minutes.

  • The original study. Heller and Bergman's 1953 paper has no abstract on PubMed. A 2022 study reports that 94% of its participants heard tinnitus-like sounds, and notes that they were aged 18 to 60 and their hearing was not objectively confirmed.
  • Sound-booth studies. In 2005, 64% of 120 normal-hearing young adults heard sounds after 20 minutes in a sound booth, most within 4 minutes; ringing was the most common, at 57%. African American listeners reported them less often. A 2022 study of 62 adults sitting in silence for 10 minutes found 63%, with no link to eye colour.
  • Anechoic rooms and suggestion. In 2008, 83% of 53 normal-hearing young adults heard at least one sound during 4 minutes in an empty anechoic chamber, and 92% with a nonfunctioning loudspeaker in the room; the authors concluded that suggestion plays only a minor role. In a 2022 randomised experiment, 74% of 78 volunteers heard sounds in an anechoic room; being told the room might harm their hearing did not change that proportion.
  • Attention. In a 2008 sound-booth study of 66 volunteers, 19.7% heard a sound while solving a puzzle, 45.5% during a visual task and 68.2% while listening for sounds.
  • An earplug instead of a quiet room. In a 2012 experiment, 14 of 18 normal-hearing volunteers who wore an earplug in one ear for 7 days reported phantom sounds, mostly high-pitched, in the range the plug blocked most. Every sound disappeared when the plug came out.
  • Models. The earplug study's authors tie their result to a computational model in which the central auditory system steadies its activity when input from the auditory nerve falls, and so can create a neural correlate of tinnitus. A 2016 predictive-coding model proposes that spontaneous activity in the hearing pathway is normally dismissed against the expectation of silence, and is heard when its weighting, or gain, rises; attention raises it further. Both are models, and minutes in a booth may not involve the same process as days with an earplug.

What this means for you

  • In these studies most people with normal hearing heard something in deep quiet, so noticing a faint sound in silence is common.
  • The NHS advises people with tinnitus not to have total silence, since soft music or sounds may distract from it. Sound therapy and sleeping with tinnitus cover low-level sound, and noise-cancelling headphones explains why their deep quiet can make tinnitus stand out.
  • The NHS advises seeing a GP if tinnitus is regular or constant, getting worse, or affecting sleep, concentration or mood. A sound that pulses with your heartbeat is covered in pulsatile tinnitus.
  • Get same-day medical help for sudden hearing loss over hours to 3 days. Call your local emergency number if a pulsing sound comes with a sudden severe headache, sudden neck pain, a drooping eyelid or a change in vision.

How it connects