Change deafness: The inability to detect changes between two voices.

Abstract

A shadowing task was used to demonstrate an auditory analogue of change blindness (the failure to detect a change in a visual scene), namely change deafness. Participants repeated words varying in lexical difficulty. Halfway through the word list, either the same or a different talker presented the words to participants. At least 40% of the participants failed to detect the change in talker. More interesting is that differences in shadowing times were found as a function of change detection. Alternative possibilities to the change detection phenomenon were ruled out. The results of these experiments suggest that the allocation of attention may influence the detection of changes as well as the processing of spoken words in complex ways.

Change deafness, dual-task performance, and domain-specific expertise

“…Our results are also consistent with previous work that shows linguistic processing can affect change deafness for voices (Neuhoff et al, 2014; Vitevitch, 2003). Our participants tasked with listening for two potential changes still only had to monitor one speech stream.…”

Change deafness, dual-task performance, and domain-specific expertise

“…Our results are also consistent with previous work that shows linguistic processing can affect change deafness for voices (Neuhoff et al, 2014; Vitevitch, 2003). Our participants tasked with listening for two potential changes still only had to monitor one speech stream.…”

The unnoticed zoo: Inattentional deafness to animal sounds in music

“…Another explanation might be that errors are a consequence of detecting the animal sound, diverting the attention from the primary task to the sound, and as a result, losing the count. These results are not only consistent with inattentional blindness/deafness literature (e.g., Wayand et al, 2005 ), but are also in accordance with findings on change deafness (see, e.g., Neuhoff, & Bochtler, 2018 ; tendentially in Vitevitch, 2003 ). However, Koreimann et al ( 2014 ) did not find significant differences in the primary task between detecting and not detecting the unusual event.…”

Orienting attention to sound object representations attenuates change deafness.

“…These results show that attention can be selectively oriented to a sound object representation—which has enough detail that we are able to detect whether or not it changes and, in this study, identify how it changes. This is in line with other change detection studies that argue that attention plays a crucial role in the memory representation of a particular object, in both the auditory (Eramudugolla et al, 2005; Vitevitch, 2003) and visual (e.g., Griffin & Nobre, 2003; Koivisto & Revonsuo, 2005; Matsukura et al, 2007; Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997) modalities. However, attention alone cannot fully explain change detection or identification failures; participants were unable to identify changes on all cued trials—even though the cues were 100% valid in Experiments 1 and 2.…”

“…identify how it changes. This is in line with other change detection studies that argue that attention plays a crucial role in the memory representation of a particular object, in both the auditory (Eramudugolla et al, 2005;Vitevitch, 2003) and visual (e.g.. Griffin & Nobre, 2003;Koivisto & Revonsuo. 2005;Matsukura et al, 2007;Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997) modalities.…”

Change deafness, dual-task performance, and domain-specific expertise

“…Our results are also consistent with previous work that shows linguistic processing can affect change deafness for voices (Neuhoff et al, 2014; Vitevitch, 2003). Our participants tasked with listening for two potential changes still only had to monitor one speech stream.…”

The unnoticed zoo: Inattentional deafness to animal sounds in music

“…Another explanation might be that errors are a consequence of detecting the animal sound, diverting the attention from the primary task to the sound, and as a result, losing the count. These results are not only consistent with inattentional blindness/deafness literature (e.g., Wayand et al, 2005 ), but are also in accordance with findings on change deafness (see, e.g., Neuhoff, & Bochtler, 2018 ; tendentially in Vitevitch, 2003 ). However, Koreimann et al ( 2014 ) did not find significant differences in the primary task between detecting and not detecting the unusual event.…”

Orienting attention to sound object representations attenuates change deafness.

“…These results show that attention can be selectively oriented to a sound object representation—which has enough detail that we are able to detect whether or not it changes and, in this study, identify how it changes. This is in line with other change detection studies that argue that attention plays a crucial role in the memory representation of a particular object, in both the auditory (Eramudugolla et al, 2005; Vitevitch, 2003) and visual (e.g., Griffin & Nobre, 2003; Koivisto & Revonsuo, 2005; Matsukura et al, 2007; Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997) modalities. However, attention alone cannot fully explain change detection or identification failures; participants were unable to identify changes on all cued trials—even though the cues were 100% valid in Experiments 1 and 2.…”

“…identify how it changes. This is in line with other change detection studies that argue that attention plays a crucial role in the memory representation of a particular object, in both the auditory (Eramudugolla et al, 2005;Vitevitch, 2003) and visual (e.g.. Griffin & Nobre, 2003;Koivisto & Revonsuo. 2005;Matsukura et al, 2007;Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997) modalities.…”

Change deafness, dual-task performance, and domain-specific expertise

“…Our results are also consistent with previous work that shows linguistic processing can affect change deafness for voices (Neuhoff et al, 2014; Vitevitch, 2003). Our participants tasked with listening for two potential changes still only had to monitor one speech stream.…”

The unnoticed zoo: Inattentional deafness to animal sounds in music

“…Another explanation might be that errors are a consequence of detecting the animal sound, diverting the attention from the primary task to the sound, and as a result, losing the count. These results are not only consistent with inattentional blindness/deafness literature (e.g., Wayand et al, 2005 ), but are also in accordance with findings on change deafness (see, e.g., Neuhoff, & Bochtler, 2018 ; tendentially in Vitevitch, 2003 ). However, Koreimann et al ( 2014 ) did not find significant differences in the primary task between detecting and not detecting the unusual event.…”

Orienting attention to sound object representations attenuates change deafness.

“…These results show that attention can be selectively oriented to a sound object representation—which has enough detail that we are able to detect whether or not it changes and, in this study, identify how it changes. This is in line with other change detection studies that argue that attention plays a crucial role in the memory representation of a particular object, in both the auditory (Eramudugolla et al, 2005; Vitevitch, 2003) and visual (e.g., Griffin & Nobre, 2003; Koivisto & Revonsuo, 2005; Matsukura et al, 2007; Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997) modalities. However, attention alone cannot fully explain change detection or identification failures; participants were unable to identify changes on all cued trials—even though the cues were 100% valid in Experiments 1 and 2.…”

“…identify how it changes. This is in line with other change detection studies that argue that attention plays a crucial role in the memory representation of a particular object, in both the auditory (Eramudugolla et al, 2005;Vitevitch, 2003) and visual (e.g.. Griffin & Nobre, 2003;Koivisto & Revonsuo. 2005;Matsukura et al, 2007;Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997) modalities.…”