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Diagram illustrating auditory perception: three sound-generating events (fork hitting plate, chair scraping, liquid pouring) transmit through an outdoor environment to the ear, with the brain performing perceptual inference to interpret both the direct sounds and their environmental context.

Course9.3523 lectures

Perception

Prof. Josh McDermott · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Start with lecture 1 At MIT OpenCourseWare

About

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.

This course is supported in part by Dr. Eugene Stark, Jr. SB ‘68, SM ‘69, EE ‘70, SCD ‘72 for the 2026-2027 academic year.

Lectures

Lecture Videos

  1. 1: Introduction to Perception Video
  2. 2: Frequency Selectivity and Nonlinearity in Hearing Video
  3. 3: Sound Localization, Pitch, Timbre, and Loudness / Psychophysical Methods Video
  4. 4: Pitch Perception and Scene Analysis Video
  5. 5: Auditory Scene Analysis Video
  6. 6: Auditory Scene Analysis (cont'd) and Speech Perception Video
  7. 7: The Eye and Retina Video
  8. 8: The Eye and the Retina (cont'd) Video
  9. 9: Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) / Primary Visual Cortex (V1) Video
  10. 10: Mid-Level Vision Video
  11. 11: Mid-Level Vision (cont'd) Video
  12. 12: Lightness Perception, Color Perception Video
  13. 13: Color Perception (cont'd), Motion Perception Video
  14. 14: Motion Perception (cont'd) Video
  15. 15: Depth Perception Video
  16. 16: Depth Perception (cont'd) Video
  17. 17: The Generic Viewpoint Assumption; Object Recognition Video
  18. 18: Object Recognition (cont'd), Texture Perception Video
  19. 19: Texture Perception (cont'd) Video
  20. 20: Attention Video
  21. 21: Attention (cont'd) Video
  22. 22: Attention (cont'd), Touch Video
  23. 23: Olfaction and Gustation Video

Syllabus and materials

At MIT OpenCourseWare, as the course publishes them.

Credits and licence

Institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Teacher
Prof. Josh McDermott
Term
Spring 2024
Level
Undergraduate
Language
English
Subjects
Medicine and health, Psychology and the brain
Source
MIT OpenCourseWare
Licence
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, as MIT OpenCourseWare states it. Non-commercial use only. MIT OpenCourseWare's terms
Attribution
Prof. Josh McDermott. Perception. Spring 2024. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu/. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.
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