I Don't Know -- Now I'm really confused after opening the door, because I don't know if I really heard the knock or not.
NOTE: When asked how she knew the knock didn't come from the TV, the student said that it came from a different direction and that it had a much fuller frequency range than would come from the TV speaker. So this exercise helped illustrate the psychoacoustic Gestalt principles of grouping by proximity and similarity. All the TV sounds grouped together (fusion) with similar directionality and timbre, while the door knock separated from this group (fission) with dissimilar directionality and timbre.
The movement of the door knock between Sound Spheres (I Know, to I Don't Know, to I Think) could be a classic example of the tension built up in a horror or suspense film, setting up an ambiguous reality which questions what is really happening. Is it an external malevolent force, a mind playing tricks on itself, or something we can't imagine (yet) as the story unfolds with unexpected plot and character developments?
