Attending to auditory filters that were not stimulated directlya)

Abstract

The effectiveness of two types of tonal cues for reducing frequency uncertainty was studied in a tonal detection-in-noise task. Signals varied at random from trial to trial over the range 750-3000 Hz. The three conditions included: (1) maximum uncertainty in which there were no cues; (2) minimal uncertainty in which "iconic cues" were identical to the signal to be detected; and (3) partial uncertainty in which "relative cues" were set to 2/3 of the signal frequency, i.e., at the musical 5th. Results show that relative cues and iconic cues were both effective in reducing uncertainty compared to the no-cue condition, but that performance with relative cues was poorer than with iconic cues by 1.4 dB. In addition, a modified probe-signal method was used to estimate the widths of the subjective listening bands. Application of a model of the auditory filter [R. Patterson and B. C. J. Moore, Frequency Selectivity in Hearing, edited by B. C. J. Moore (Academic, New York, 1986)] to these data showed that the subjective listening bands used with iconic cues were similar in width to typical measures of the critical band but that the bands used with relative cues were wider by a factor of roughly 1.6.

Auditory attention to frequency and time: an analogy to visual local–global stimuli

“…More distant probes are detected poorly. In some cases the expected frequency is the same throughout the experiment, and in others is established by cues of various types presented before each trial (Hafter, Schlauch, & Tang, 1993;Hübner & Hafter, 1995;Macmillan & Schwartz, 1975;Scharf, Quigley, Aoki, Peachey, & Reeves, 1987;Schlauch & Hafter, 1991). These cues need not be informative in order for frequency facilitation to occur, which suggests that exogenous or automatic as well as endogenous or controlled mechanisms may be involved (Green & McKeown, 2001).…”

Inhibitory processes in auditory selective attention: Evidence of location-based and frequency-based inhibition of return

“…This apparent lack of interest may be unCopyright 1998 Psychonomic Society, Inc.derstandable given that there has been some controversy as to whether it is even possible to allocate auditory attention on the basis of spatial location or other features (e.g., Buchtel & Butter, 1988). However, recent evidence has established quite clearly that auditory attention may be deployed in response not only to a location cue (Mondor & Bryden, 1992a, 1992bMondor & Zatorre, 1995;Spence & Driver, 1994) but also to a frequency cue (Hafter, Schlauch, & Tang, 1993;Mondor & Bregman, 1994;Mondor, Zatorre, & Terrio, in press;Scharf, Quigley, Aoki, Peachey, & Reeves, 1987;Schlauch & Hafter, 1991).…”

Distributed cortical networks for focused auditory attention and distraction

“…This activity might be associated with a right-hemisphere dominant auditory change-detection mechanism initiating involuntary attention to a task relevant auditory feature [15,19,21,24] while the bilateral activations in the IFG and/or insula might be related to the actual switching of attention [11,23,24]. Alternatively, as pitch uncertainty is known to decrease detectability of a tone [12,14] due to relatively narrow listening bands, these activations might be related to tuning of attention to a new pitch. Processes involved in possible inhibition of responses to irrelevant information might also contribute to the IFG/insular activity [2,24].…”