Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 30 Sep 2005 02:51:38 GMT, wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
P.S. How often has anybody done a blind test in which they listened for
days? Let's say 4 switches per trial, 2 days per switch, 20 trials:
that's 160 days. Has this ever happened? Ever?
No one who understands human hearing perception would waste his time on
such an endeavor. It's nonsensical (as well as being a bad test).
How would we know what the result would be if we haven't done it?
In exactly the same way that we know that you will never run a
3-minute mile.
Your statement here, and Bob's statement about "elephants that can
fly", are statements about performance. Can my body *perform* to that
level; does an elephant have the *ability* to fly?
This seems to reflect the basic assumption in your paradigm: that the
performance of the test subject in discriminating A & B is a good way
to understand perception.
Whereas I ask, not how the ear/brain "performs," but simply: do the
different sounds A & B produce different experiences? And then I
investigate how one might go about determining if they do or do not.
Discrimination tasks that are based either on quick switching, or on
the need to conceptualize the qualities of the sound, are IMO not good
ways to investigate this question.
Also note that perception is a fluid and very rich function, not
analgous to physical functions.
Mike