Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions/week, 1.5 hour/session
Recitations: 1 session/week, 1 hour/session
Prerequisites
9.01 Introduction to Neuroscience or permission of the instructor.
Course Description
This course studies how the senses work and how physical stimuli are transformed into signals in the nervous system. It examines how the brain uses those signals to make inferences about the world and uses illusions and demonstrations to gain insight into those inferences, emphasizing audition and vision, with some discussion of touch, taste, and smell. Experience with psychophysical methods is provided.
Readings
There is no single perfect textbook for this class, so instead of making you buy something that is less than ideal, we will be assigning readings (chapters from a variety of textbooks, along with primary research articles). Many of the readings will be drawn from the following texts:
- The Sense of Hearing by Chris Plack, Routledge, 2023. ISBN: 9781032299471.
- Foundations of Vision by Brian Wandell, Sinauer, 1995. ISBN: 9780878938537. [Open Textbook]
- Sensation & Perception by Jeremy Wolfe et al., Oxford, 2024. ISBN: 9780197663813.
Grading
We do not grade on a curve. If everyone in the class does well, everyone can get an A. Grades will be assigned based on your overall, weighted class average using the weighting scheme presented below:
- Problem sets and labs: 35%
- 4 midterms: 7.5% each
- 4 quizzes: 2.5% each
- Attendance at Illusion Lab classes: 5%
- Final exam: 20%
Grade cutoffs for this course, based on your overall weighted class average, are as follows:
- 90% and above: A
- 80 to 89.99%: B
- 70 to 79.99%: C
- 60 to 69.99%: D
We reserve the right to adjust these cutoffs downwards. We will in no case adjust them upwards.
Problem Sets and Illusion Labs
Assignments will sometimes require the use of either MATLAB® or Python. In most cases, you can use whichever you prefer.
We will primarily be using Python notebooks, which can be edited via Google Colab (which does not require a local Python installation) or Jupyter. Instructions for download and installation of Jupyter are provided on this website: https://jupyter.org/install.
You may not use ChatGPT or a similar tool to complete problem sets or labs.
Topics
- Section 1: Intro to Perception - Sound and the Ear
- Section 2: Frequency Selectivity and Hearing Loss
- Section 3: Psychophysics - Auditory Perception
- Section 4: Auditory Scene Analysis
- Section 5: Speech Perception - Eye/Retina
- Section 6: LGN and V1 - Spatial Vision
- Section 7: Mid-Level Vision - Lightness Perception
- Section 8: Color Perception - Motion
- Section 9: Depth Perception
- Section 10: Stereopsis - Generic Viewpoint - Object Recognition
- Section 11: More on Object Recognition - Texture Perception
- Section 12: Attention
- Section 13: Touch
- Section 14: Smell and Taste
