200 words

The aim of my project is to test the perception of the senses. I find it very interesting how much sound is influenced by sight and I want to investigate those senses and how we perceive how things sound.
For example, when you hear a sound and you you do not know the origin, you instantly turn your head to see what is making the sound. Once discovered the curiousity is eliminated and you are able to tell just from sound what the materials that are making the noise is. I am going to take sight out of this equation and have a user test if they can correctly name the objects which are creating a particular sound.

For my experiment I will be using at least 10 different materials / objects of a variety of shape / size and materiality and a panel structure which separates these objects from view.
The other side of the panel will either have images or titles of objects/materials (I haven't decided which yet as each have merits). One person will stand on the Image side and another person will stand on the object side.

The person on the object side will then choose TWO of the objects and start to make noise using those two objects together, and continue to make noise for 10 seconds. The noise will then stop, and the person on the other side will try and figure out which objects were being used to create the sound, using only the pictures/titles. This person will think they know what certain objects sound like, but when it comes to deciding on two objects, they will struggle.

This experiment really puts the focus on how two senses are used together to make decisions in everyday life without thinking about it. The interactive-gaming type feel the experiment gives makes users more likely to want to try different combinations and see if they can get better at figuring it out. Testing your senses and what you perceive different objects will sound like is harder than we all think.

I am also very interested in the outcome of this test - whether boys are better than girls, or whether practice makes perfect, or how sure people are of there guess. The psychology behind the investigation is very interesting as well as the trickery of the senses.