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Introduction to Perception
Introduces the foundational concepts and organizational structure of the course, outlining key domains within sensation and perception in cognitive neuroscience.
Lecture guide · Written by AI from the lecture. For the lecture’s own words, open the Transcript tab.
hard, how perceptual problems are ill-posed, the necessity of invariance, perception as unconscious inference, and how illusions serve as tools to study perceptual mechanisms. It concludes with an introduction to acoustics, sound waves, the inverse square law, and the decibel scale.
This lecture assumes
- Ill-posed problemtaught in Neurobiology of Musical Perception, Pitch & Auditory Cortex at 1:01
- Conservation of Energytaught in The Great Conservation Principles at 22:23
Key Takeaways
- Perception is the task of determining what is out there in the world from sensory input.
- Perceptual problems are usually ill-posed, meaning there is not enough information in the sensory input alone to uniquely determine the answer.
- Perceptual systems must be invariant, recognizing that vastly different sensory inputs correspond to the same underlying object or category in the world.
- Perception operates as unconscious inference, where the brain automatically chooses the most probable interpretation of sensory data.
Concepts Explained17
Perception—The task of determining what is out there in the world from sensory input.
Ill-posed perceptual problems—Problems where there is not enough information to uniquely determine the answer to the problem.
Cocktail party problem—The ability to focus on a single auditory stream or speaker in the presence of competing background noises and other concurrent speakers.
Perceptual invariance—The property of perceptual systems to recognize that vastly different sensory inputs correspond to the same underlying object or category in the world.
Examples, Proofs & Derivations
Part of course·Lecture 1 of 20
9.35: Sensation and Perception in Cognitive Neuroscience
Start of sequence
Next · Lecture 2Opening lecture of 20-session syllabus
Frequency Selectivity and Nonlinearity in Hearing
About the lecturer
Professor
Josh McDermott is an MIT Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, whose research explores sensation and perception, particularly in auditory processing and attention.
1 course · 20 lectures in archiveView profile
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