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Feature assignment in perception of auditory figure.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  22288691     Owner:  NLM     Status:  Publisher    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Because the environment often includes multiple sounds that overlap in time, listeners must segregate a sound of interest (the auditory figure) from other co-occurring sounds (the unattended auditory ground). We conducted a series of experiments to clarify the principles governing the extraction of auditory figures. We distinguish between auditory "objects" (relatively punctate events, such as a dog's bark) and auditory "streams" (sounds involving a pattern over time, such as a galloping rhythm). In Experiments 1 and 2, on each trial 2 sounds-an object (a vowel) and a stream (a series of tones)-were presented with 1 target feature that could be perceptually grouped with either source. In each block of these experiments, listeners were required to attend to 1 of the 2 sounds, and report its perceived category. Across several experimental manipulations, listeners were more likely to allocate the feature to an impoverished object if the result of the grouping was a good, identifiable object. Perception of objects was quite sensitive to feature variation (noise masking), whereas perception of streams was more robust to feature variation. In Experiment 3, the number of sound sources competing for the feature was increased to 3. This produced a shift toward relying more on spatial cues than on the potential contribution of the feature to an object's perceptual quality. The results support a distinction between auditory objects and streams, and provide new information about the way that the auditory world is parsed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Authors:
Melissa K Gregg; Arthur G Samuel
Publication Detail:
Type:  JOURNAL ARTICLE     Date:  2012-1-30
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance     Volume:  -     ISSN:  1939-1277     ISO Abbreviation:  -     Publication Date:  2012 Jan 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2012-1-31     Completed Date:  -     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7502589     Medline TA:  J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform     Country:  -    
Other Details:
Languages:  ENG     Pagination:  -     Citation Subset:  -    
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