2.17 Hearing

Question 1

Why do humans outperform computers when identifying objects?

Answer 1

1. image on the retina is ambiguous (inverse projection problem)
2. images can be obscured or blurry (harder for computers to identify)
3. objects look different from different viewpoints (viewpoint invariance)

Question 2

perception

Answer 2

conscious experience that follows sensory stimulation
Based on our previous experiences/context, what we choose to focus on (e.g. vase or two faces), heavily influenced by expectations (predictive coding) and statistical regularities in our environment

Question 3

Hemholtz: influence of regularities in the environment

Answer 3

postulated that we make unconscious assumptions about our environment based on past experiences (e.g. blue rectangle is on top of red rectangle, not a red rectangle cutout, people are better at identifying horizontal and vertical objects than objects of other orientations, harder to identify abnormalities in upside down faces than right side up)

Question 4

inverse projection problem

Answer 4

objects of different orientation are projected as the same image on the retina

Question 5

Why are people better at identifying verticals and horizontals than slanted objects?

Answer 5

slanted objects are less common, especially in natural world

Question 6

Why are people better at identifying abnormalities in right side up faces, not upside down faces?

Answer 6

we are not used to seeing inverted faces