Sighted evaluations stress trained listeners who no longer accept visual bias.

Evidence

Years ago, at the NRCC, we contracted to perform anechoic measurements and to conduct blind loudspeaker comparisons for Canadian audio magazines. The journalists traveled to Ottawa, arriving the night before the tests to give their ears a chance to rest, and spent a day or more doing double blind subjective evaluations before they got to see the measurements on the products they submitted. On one occasion, due to unforeseen circumstances, the special acoustically transparent, visually opaque, screen was not available—it was on a truck 2 hours away. Rather than waste time, it was decided to start the tests without the screen—sighted. A few rounds into the randomized, repetitive tests our customers stopped the proceedings—they felt that seeing the loudspeakers prevented them from being objective—they were stressed! They waited for the truck to arrive. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1088

Categorization

• CANDY: Amusing anecdote: professional reviewers refused to judge speakers sighted even though they thought blind testing was stressful.
• XREF: Connects to studies showing visual cues bias subjective product evaluation across domains.