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.

    24/380 (page 12)
    that the position and distance, which I believe I hear, are nothing but ideas of other senses, closely associated with those modifications of soundThis is clearly shown, as Hartley long before had suggested, by the phenomena of ventriloquism. For here “ a man acquires the art of form- ing that peculiar modification of sound, which would come from this or that position, different from the position he is in ; in other words, the sound which is associated, not with the idea of the position he is in, but that of another position. The sound is heard, the association takes place, we cannot help believing that the sound proceeds from a certain place, though we know . . . that it proceeds from another.” Again, Spencer (64) expresses in unambiguous lan- guage the same opinion as his predecessors. Hearing is put upon the same plane as smell, for “ sensations of sound do not of themselves yield the consciousness of space.” They are to be regarded as “not having in themselves any space-implications.” And this seems to Spencer so self-evident that he boldly writes : “ No one will allege that sound, as an affection of conscious- ness, has any space-attributes. And even those who have little considered such questions will admit that our knowledge of sound as coming from this or that point in space, is a knowledge gained by experience—is a knowledge not given along with the sound but inferred from certain modifications of the sound. When being deluded by a ventriloquist and led to draw wrong infer- ences, or when, respecting the whereabouts of a humming gnat at night we can draw no inference, we get clear 1 Italics not in the original.