Duration Discrimination of Noise and Tone Bursts

Abel, Sharon M.

doi:10.1121/1.1912963

Cited by 170 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…However, it runs contrary to the results from studies of many other types of auditory temporal processing, including gap detection (9), amplitude-modulation detection (10) and discrimination (11), and duration discrimination (12), which have either revealed no clear effects of frequency or have shown better temporal encoding at higher rather than lower frequencies. Here we reexamine the data and claims of the earlier study (8).…”

contrasting

confidence: 52%

Rhythm judgments reveal a frequency asymmetry in the perception and neural coding of sound synchrony

Wojtczak

Mehta

Oxenham

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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In modern Western music, melody is commonly conveyed by pitch changes in the highest-register voice, whereas meter or rhythm is often carried by instruments with lower pitches. An intriguing and recently suggested possibility is that the custom of assigning rhythmic functions to lower-pitch instruments may have emerged because of fundamental properties of the auditory system that result in superior time encoding for low pitches. Here we compare rhythm and synchrony perception between low-and high-frequency tones, using both behavioral and EEG techniques. Both methods were consistent in showing no superiority in time encoding for low over high frequencies. However, listeners were consistently more sensitive to timing differences between two nearly synchronous tones when the high-frequency tone followed the low-frequency tone than vice versa. The results demonstrate no superiority of low frequencies in timing judgments but reveal a robust asymmetry in the perception and neural coding of synchrony that reflects greater tolerance for delays of low-relative to high-frequency sounds than vice versa. We propose that this asymmetry exists to compensate for inherent and variable time delays in cochlear processing, as well as the acoustical properties of sound sources in the natural environment, thereby providing veridical perceptual experiences of simultaneity.rhythm perception | time encoding | sound asynchrony perception | auditory perception | mismatch negativity T he perception of music involves the processing of multiple simultaneous sounds, including the perceptual organization of components originating from one instrument into a single "auditory object" (1) and their segregation from components that originate from other instruments. The first stage of this process occurs in the inner ear and involves the decomposition of incoming sound by frequency, resulting in frequency-to-place mapping (tonotopy) along the length of the cochlear partition (2).A series of recent studies has suggested that these and other basic properties of the auditory system, which are shared by a wide variety of species, may help account for some fundamental aspects of Western music, including the dominance of high-register instruments (i.e., instruments with high fundamental frequencies) in carrying the melody (3-7), as well as the dominance of low-register instruments (such as bass or bass drum) in defining the meter or rhythm (8). In the latter case, a study by Hove et al. (8) involving both behavioral and EEG experiments reported that time encoding was superior for low-vs. high-pitched sounds and suggested that this superior time encoding could explain why low instruments generally lay the rhythm in music.The suggestion that superior time encoding of low pitches can explain aspects of Western music is intriguing. However, it runs contrary to the results from studies of many other types of auditory temporal processing, including gap detection (9), amplitude-modulation detection (10) and discrimination (11), and duration discrimination (12)...

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contrasting

confidence: 52%

Rhythm judgments reveal a frequency asymmetry in the perception and neural coding of sound synchrony

Wojtczak

Mehta

Oxenham

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Abel, 1972). In the flanker condition, on the other hand, a clear intensity effect could be observed even for a 12-dB difference in levels; no effect could be found in previous studies with no flankers for 20-dB difference (Abel, 1972). Clearly, the observed effect is due to the existence of preceding and succeeding tones and might not be predicted by conventional types of duration discrimination models (e.g.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 39%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 67%

Intensity effect on discrimination of suditory duration flanked by preceding and succeeding tones.

Kato¹,

Tsuzaki²

1994

J. Acoust. Soc. Jpn. (E), J Acoust Soc Jpn E

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“…Psychological duration DUR (measured in psychophysical units coined DUR) is converted from stimulus duration t (expressed in seconds) according to the following transformation: This transformation was proposed by Smits, Sereno, and Jongman (2006) based on data published by Abel (1972). The relevant JND in this frequency region for formant frequency is 0.12 ERB (Kewley-Port & Watson, 1994).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supervised and unsupervised learning of multidimensional acoustic categories.

Goudbeek

Swingley

Smits

2009

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Learning to recognize the contrasts of a language-specific phonemic repertoire can be viewed as forming categories in a multidimensional psychophysical space. Research on the learning of distributionally defined visual categories has shown that categories defined over 1 dimension are easy to learn and that learning multidimensional categories is more difficult but tractable under specific task conditions. In 2 experiments, adult participants learned either a unidimensional or a multidimensional category distinction with or without supervision (feedback) during learning. The unidimensional distinctions were readily learned and supervision proved beneficial, especially in maintaining category learning beyond the learning phase. Learning the multidimensional category distinction proved to be much more difficult and supervision was not nearly as beneficial as with unidimensionally defined categories. Maintaining a learned multidimensional category distinction was only possible when the distributional information that identified the categories remained present throughout the testing phase. We conclude that listeners are sensitive to both trial-by-trial feedback and the distributional information in the stimuli. Even given limited exposure, listeners learned to use 2 relevant dimensions, albeit with considerable difficulty.

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Duration Discrimination of Noise and Tone Bursts

Cited by 170 publications

References 6 publications

Rhythm judgments reveal a frequency asymmetry in the perception and neural coding of sound synchrony

Rhythm judgments reveal a frequency asymmetry in the perception and neural coding of sound synchrony

Intensity effect on discrimination of suditory duration flanked by preceding and succeeding tones.

Supervised and unsupervised learning of multidimensional acoustic categories.

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