I saw the boy who "clicked" on Oprah recently. It all seemed very straightforward. I was only surprised to realize nobody's thought of this before (what's the Bushman language w/ clicks?). The boy demonstrated how he can hear corners and doorways as he's walking down a hallway, or the end of an aisle in a grocery store. I was impressed that he can detect curbs and stairs. I have noticed that just listening to the ambient background sound, one can detect the presence of wall, end of a wall, or even a person (sound absorber) moving along a wall that is reflecting ambient sound.
He spoke to Oprah about distinguishing between wood and metal and sensing how thick some metals were.
On another Oprah show, there was this lady who could hear more nuance in sound than most and had figured out that babies worldwide have a common reflexive language for the first few month. She's theoretically identified 5 words (reflexive sounds)that made life much easier for all the new mothers who learned the key.
http://www.dunstanbaby.com/This woman also claimed to hear people's pulse and other physical qualities (full stomach, etc.) in the persons voice.
Mostly I think it's a matter of training; much as we can improve reaction time with training, our ears can be trained to hear faster.
I recall seeing a report on a girls softball team which did visual training to "keep their eye on the ball." They got to the point where they could count marks on a ball pitched to them (regulation pitching). Their batting improved dramatically.
~~samwik
