PSYCH 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Gestalt Psychology, Basilar Membrane, Hair Cell

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Psychology & Brain Sciences
• Course: PSYCH 100
• Professor: Tammy Rahhal

Document Summary

Frequency -number of complete cycles units per time. Corresponds to our psychological sensation of pitch. Different pitches produce responses on different places on the basilar membrane. Different pitches cause the basilar membrane itself to vibrate at different frequencies. Not movement of basilar membrane but number of stimulated hair cells. Up vs down (one ear slightly higher than the other) front vs behind - harder to detect. Actual voice is what you hear in recordings. There is not a 1:1 correspondence between perceptual representation of world and physical reality of world information is ambiguous. Ex. seeing someone from across a pond. Do this with all sorts of physical world information take available information and represent it based on what we know about world. Case where rules that we use to interpret world, which are usually true, are not true and lead us to misinterpretation. Gestalt psychology tried specify rules of perception for how we distinguish coherent separate objects.