Auditory Illusion Lab
Introduction
Auditory perception research depends on the development of sound stimuli that allow us to probe the principles and mechanisms underlying human hearing. We often use these stimuli in psychophysics experiments (e.g., 2AFC, threshold estimation) to make careful perceptual measurements. However, sometimes these probes are so effective that those putative principles can be pointed out in the perceiver’s immediate experience. We’ve heard many examples of these demonstrations, or “illusions,” in class.
In this practical, you will create a new illusion that is inspired by existing research and that answers a new question. For the first illusion lab, we will focus on the perceptual organization of sound, called auditory scene analysis.
Intended learning objectives
1. Identify perceptual principles underlying auditory illusions
2. Design stimuli to test a scientific question about perception
3. Evaluate your subjective experience for evidence of perceptual mechanisms at work
Tasks
Task 1: Review existing illusions
For each example in the illusion review, write a sentence that briefly describes what perceptual principle is being demonstrated and what kinds of perceptual processing and phenomena are involved in the demo design (think in terms of class topics/concepts).
Example for one of the listed illusions: “When one component of a harmonic complex tone is mistuned it can be heard separately, showing that the auditory system groups together components when their frequencies are harmonically related.”
Task 2: Meet with course staff
Come up with a idea for making an illusion that answers a new scientific question about perception. This illusion should be inspired by at least one of the papers on the list. (Check with the course staff if you want to use something outside of the list.) Attend a meeting with one of the course staff to discuss the idea(s). It is strongly advised to have an initial illusion design/sketch to discuss, even if you haven’t created the illusion itself. Following your meeting, submit a meeting summary.
Task 3: Design and submit your illusion
Fill in the HTML template on the resources page to design your webpage. Feel free to personalize it as much as you want, as long as it clearly includes the following:
- A new scientific question that your illusion is meant to address
- An explanation of your illusion design, and how it is meant to address your question
- Your illusion: one or more than one sound for others to listen to
- A spectrogram of your sound
- The citation to the paper(s) that inspired your illusion
- A picture for the gallery homepage
Please keep in mind that this webpage is for others to read and understand your illusion: to aid in this, your writing should discuss concepts covered in class. Create a ZIP folder with all of the necessary components and submit it.
Task 4: Gallery exchange
You will be assigned two of your classmates’ submissions in the gallery. On each, leave a collaborative 2–3 sentence comment that covers the following:
- a) Pretend you are a research subject participating in your classmate’s experiment. Describe your subjective experience of the illusion.
- b) Now, pretend you are the researcher and assess whether your experience of the demo was helpful in answering the stated question.
Feel free to include comments on other illusions as well!
On your own illusion page, respond to the comments by your classmates. Pretending you are the researcher,
- c) Assess whether the subjective reports answer your question.
- d) Identify what changes you could make to your illusion to get a clearer answer to your question; OR, ask a follow-up question based on the answer you’ve arrived at.
Task 5: Feedback
Submit a response to tell us at least one way we could improve this assignment.
Visual Illusion Lab
Introduction
Visual illusions provide powerful tools with which we can probe the principles and mechanisms underlying human vision, and are foundational to vision research, just as in auditory research.
In this practical, you will create an illusion inspired by existing vision research and continue to build on the general scientific skills that you practiced in the auditory scene analysis lab. The format of the lab is the same as the auditory illusion lab.
Intended learning objectives
1. Identify perceptual principles underlying visual illusions.
2. Design an image to test a scientific question about perception.
3. Evaluate your subjective experience for evidence of perceptual mechanisms at work.
Tasks
Task 1: Review existing illusions
For each example in the illusion review, write a sentence that briefly describes what perceptual principle is being demonstrated and what kinds of perceptual processing and phenomena are involved in the demo design (think in terms of class topics/concepts).
Example for one of the listed illusions: “This illusion relies on combining stereopsis and color perception to show that perceived color relies on perceived depth.”
Task 2: Meet with course staff
Come up with an idea for making an illusion that answers a new scientific question about perception. This illusion should be inspired by at least one of the papers on the list. (Check with the course staff if you want to use something outside of the list.) Attend a meeting with one of the course staff to discuss the idea(s). It is strongly advised to have an initial illusion design/sketch to discuss, even if you haven’t created the illusion itself. Following your meeting, submit a meeting summary.
Task 3: Design and submit your illusion
Fill in the HTML template on the resources page to design your webpage. Feel free to personalize it as much as you want, as long as it clearly includes the following:
- A new scientific question that your illusion is meant to address
- An explanation of your illusion design and how it is meant to address your question
- Your illusion: one or more than one image, gif, or video for others to view
- A spectrogram of your sound
- The citation to the paper(s) that inspired your illusion
- A picture for the gallery homepage
Please keep in mind that this webpage is for others to read and understand your illusion: to aid in this, your writing should discuss concepts covered in class. Create a ZIP folder with all of the necessary components and submit it.
Task 4: Gallery exchange
You will be assigned two of your classmates’ submissions in the gallery. On each, leave a collaborative 2–3 sentence comment that covers the following:
- a) Pretend you are a research subject participating in your classmate’s experiment. Describe your subjective experience of the illusion.
- b) Now, pretend you are the researcher and assess whether your experience of the demo was helpful in answering the stated question.
Feel free to include comments on other illusions as well!
On your own illusion page, respond to the comments by your classmates. Pretending you are the researcher,
- c) Assess whether the subjective reports answer your question.
- d) Identify what changes you could make to your illusion to get a clearer answer to your question; OR, ask a follow-up question based on the answer you’ve arrived at.
Task 5: Feedback
Submit a response to tell us at least one way we could improve this assignment.
