Studies in auditory and visual space perception / by Arthur Henry Pierce.

  • Pierce, Arthur Henry, 1867-1914.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Studies in auditory and visual space perception / by Arthur Henry Pierce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Berkeley held the above view in a sufficiently definite manner (49). Wishing to show that “outness” and dis- tance are to the mind not objects of sight, he appeals confidently to hearing for a clear analogy the admission of which he takes for granted. The different distances of the approaching coach, he says, are perceived by the variations of the noise, and by this Berkeley means that these variations of noise are associated with correspond- ing amounts of locomotion, in terms of which we think of distance. But, he continues, “ I do not, nevertheless, say I hear distance,” the non-spatial character of sound is too obvious to everybody for that mistake to be made. Similarly Hartley (51) would seem to reduce all audi- tory localizations to associations with other experiences. Distance is associated with intensity, and direction with less clearly assignable indications. “We judge of the position of the speaker, or sounding body, by the eye, or by some other method independent of the ear. And thus, if from some mistaken presumption a voice, or sound, shall be deemed to come from a quarter different from the true place of it, we shall continue in that error from the strength of that mistaken presumption.” Still more explicit is James Mill (57), and clear as al- ways. Localizations of sound are obvious cases of in- dissoluble association; there is nothing “but the close association of the sounds with the ideas [visual ?] of the objects.” “I believe,” he says, “not only that I hear the sound of a man’s voice, but that I hear it behind me, or before me; on my right hand, or on my left; at this distance or at that. The indisputable fact, in the mean- time, is that I hear only a modification of sound, and