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PubMed1995

Cuing mechanisms in auditory signal detection.

Detection of auditory signals under frequency uncertainty can be improved by presenting cues to the listeners. Since various cues have been found to differ in effectiveness, three conceivable mechanisms were considered which might account for these differences. Cuing might reduce the number and/or width of the employed auditory filters or listening bands. Also, cues could modulate the precision of frequency tuning of the filters. Psychometric functions were collected in a detection experiment with frequency uncertainty employing three kinds of cues: pure tones whose frequency was identical to that of the signal (iconic cues), complex tones with a missing fundamental equal to the signal (complex cues), and pure tones with a certain frequency relation to the signal (relative cues). Compared with a no-cue condition, all cue types improved detection performance. Fitting models to the data suggests that in the no-cue condition as well as the complex-cue condition, multiple bands were utilized, and that the iconic and relative cues induced single-band listening. There is no indication that accuracy of frequency tuning was responsible for cue-efficiency differences.

Attention↗
PubMed1991

Informational masking and auditory attention.

Informational masking is broadly defined as a degradation of auditory detection or discrimination of a signal embedded in a context of other similar sounds; it is not related to energetic masking caused by physical interactions between signal and masker. In this paper, we report a systematic release from informational masking of a target tone in a nine-tone rapid auditory sequence as the target is increasingly isolated in frequency or intensity from the remaining sequence components. Improved target-tone frequency difference limens as isolation increases are interpreted as a reflection of increasingly focused auditory attention. The change from diffuse to highly focused attention is gradual over the frequency and intensity ranges examined, with each 1-dB increment in target intensity relative to the remaining components producing performance improvements equivalent to those produced by a 2% increase in frequency isolation. The results are modeled as bands of attention in the frequency and intensity domains. For attention directed by frequency isolation, there is a strong correspondence with auditory filters predicted by the power spectrum model of masking. These data also support the existence of an attention band of intensity, with a bandwidth of about 5-7 dB at the moderate levels used in this experiment.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Amplitude discrimination of sinusoids and narrow-band noise with Rayleigh properties.

The ability of human observers to discriminate differences in the amplitude of sinusoids and narrow-band noises was measured by the rating method of detection theory. Although each sinusoid (always 1000 Hz) was presented at a fixed amplitude, its amplitude on any trial was drawn from one of two Rayleigh probability distributions that differed in mean amplitude: a signal distribution and a noise distribution. Similarly, the amplitudes of the narrow-band noises were distributed as the Rayleigh distribution by virtue of the reciprocal relation between their bandwidth (100 Hz centered on 1000 Hz) and duration (10 msec). The obtained psychometric functions showing the area under the ROC as a function of signal-to-noise ratio were similar for both kinds of signals and were displaced, on average, about 4 dB from an ideal observer's function. The slopes of the obtained functions were similar to those of an ideal observer using 1 degree of freedom--half the number available in Rayleigh noise.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Effects of talker, rate, and amplitude variation on recognition memory for spoken words.

This study investigated the encoding of the surface form of spoken words using a continuous recognition memory task. The purpose was to compare and contrast three sources of stimulus variability--talker, speaking rate, and overall amplitude--to determine the extent to which each source of variability is retained in episodic memory. In Experiment 1, listeners judged whether each word in a list of spoken words was "old" (had occurred previously in the list) or "new." Listeners were more accurate at recognizing a word as old if it was repeated by the same talker and at the same speaking rate; however, there was no recognition advantage for words repeated at the same overall amplitude. In Experiment 2, listeners were first asked to judge whether each word was old or new, as before, and then they had to explicitly judge whether it was repeated by the same talker, at the same rate, or at the same amplitude. On the first task, listeners again showed an advantage in recognition memory for words repeated by the same talker and at same speaking rate, but no advantage occurred for the amplitude condition. However, in all three conditions, listeners were able to explicitly detect whether an old word was repeated by the same talker, at the same rate, or at the same amplitude. These data suggest that although information about all three properties of spoken words is encoded and retained in memory, each source of stimulus variation differs in the extent to which it affects episodic memory for spoken words.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

The normal distribution in scaling subjective stimulus differences: less "normal" than we think?

The Gaussian, or "normal," distribution is routinely used to model distributions of subjective quantities. This practice rests on a trust in the central limit theorem, yet this theorem does not cover the case of a mixture of Gaussian distributions with different standard deviations, which yields a distribution that is heavier tailed than the Gaussian. In psychophysical judgment experiments, this may result, for example, from fluctuating or interindividually varying attention. Two candidates for describing this commonly encountered type of distribution are the logistic distribution and the t distribution with a small number of degrees of freedom. In reanalyses of experimental data on three-category loudness comparisons, as well as in a Monte Carlo simulation, t(4) was found to model the underlying mixed inter- and intraindividual distribution of subjective loudness differences quite satisfactorily.

Humans↗
PubMed1990

Interaction among auditory dimensions: timbre, pitch, and loudness.

In two experiments, we examined whether or not pairs of auditory dimensions--timbre-loudness (Experiment 1) and timbre-pitch (Experiment 2)--interact in speeded classification. Subjects classified values from one dimension while the other dimension was (1) held constant (baseline), (2) varied orthogonally (filtering), or (3) correlated linearly. The subjects showed substantial Garner interference when classifying all dimensions--that is, poor performance at filtering relative to baseline. Timbre and loudness displayed redundancy gain (i.e., performance faster than baseline) when correlated positively, but redundancy loss (i.e., interference) when correlated negatively. Timbre and pitch displayed redundancy gain however dimensions were correlated. Both pairs of dimensions showed substantial effects of congruity: Attributes from one dimension were classified faster when paired with "congruent" attributes from the other dimension. The results are interpreted in terms of an interactive multichannel model of auditory processing.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

The cocktail party effect in infants.

Most speech research with infants occurs in quiet laboratory rooms with no outside distractions. However, in the real world, speech directed to infants often occurs in the presence of other competing acoustic signals. To learn language, infants need to attend to their caregiver's speech even under less than ideal listening conditions. We examined 7.5-month-old infants' abilities to selectively attend to a female talker's voice when a male voice was talking simultaneously. In three experiments, infants heard a target voice repeating isolated words while a distractor voice spoke fluently at one of three different intensities. Subsequently, infants heard passages produced by the target voice containing either the familiar words or novel words. Infants listened longer to the familiar words when the target voice was 10 dB or 5 dB more intense than the distractor, but not when the two voices were equally intense. In a fourth experiment, the assignment of words and passages to the familiarization and testing phases was reversed so that the passages and distractors were presented simultaneously during familiarization, and the infants were tested on the familiar and unfamiliar isolated words. During familiarization, the passages were 10 dB more intense than the distractors. The results suggest that this may be at the limits of what infants at this age can do in separating two different streams of speech. In conclusion, infants have some capacity to extract information from speech even in the face of a competing acoustic voice.

Attention↗
PubMed1989

Shift in stimulus range and the exponent of the power function for loudness.

The exponent of the power function for loudness was tracked over the course of 60 trials with one stimulus range and compared to the exponent over the course of 60 subsequent trials with a different stimulus range. Three stimulus sets were used: (1) weak, a short range of relatively soft tones (45-55 dBA); (2) strong, a short range of relatively loud tones (64-74 dBA); and (3) complete, a longer range of soft to loud tones (40-90 dBA). All pairs of stimulus sets were tested, together with three control conditions in which no shift in range occurred. Ten subjects were run in each of the nine groups. For preshift trials, the mean exponent was lowest for the strong stimulus series, highest for the weak series, and at an intermediate value for the complete series. These differences were all significant. Following a shift in stimulus range, the weak series still yielded the highest exponent, but the exponents were not reliably different for the complete and strong series. Postshift exponents also depended significantly on the preshift range experienced by the subjects. These effects were not confined to the period immediately following the shift in range, but persisted for up to 60 trials.

Attention↗
PubMed1990

Intensity discrimination and loudness for tones in broadband noise.

In two previous papers (Parker & Schneider, 1980; Schneider & Parker, 1987), we developed a model, based on Fechner's assumption, which successfully predicted the relationship between loudness and intensity discrimination for tones presented in quiet and in notched noise. In the present paper, pure-tone intensity-increment thresholds and loudness matches were determined for several levels of a standard tone in the presence of a broadband masker whose spectrum level was set to 35 dB below that of the standard tone. The model was unable to relate loudness to intensity discrimination under these conditions. Thus, the spectral composition of the masker affects the relationship between loudness and intensity discrimination in ways that cannot be accounted for by the model.

Adult↗