Insensitivity to the coherence of interaural-time-difference modulation across frequency channels

Abstract

The present study examined the dynamic properties of the across-frequency integration mechanism, specifically the extent to which the information about the direction of changes in the interaural-time difference (ITD) is integrated or compared across frequencies. The stimulus was a complex tone consisting of two sinusoidal carriers, one at 400 and the other at 700 Hz. A sinusoidal modulation in the ITD was imposed on one carrier alone or the two carriers simultaneously. The ITD of each carrier was centered at 0 ms, and the modulation started and ended with the zero phase. ITD modulations, when imposed on the two carriers simultaneously, were in-phase or anti-phase between them. Experiment 1 measured the threshold modulation depth for detecting the modulation with an adaptive method. The thresholds were generally lower when both carriers were modulated than when only one was, indicating across-frequency integration of the information about the presence of modulation. The threshold, however, was not significantly different between the in-phase and antiphase conditions, even when the modulation rate was as low as 1 Hz. Experiment 2 measured the discriminability between in-phase and anti-phase modulations. Modulation depth was fixed at a suprathreshold value (600 ms). The performance varied largely among the listeners, and it was near the chance level for half of listeners even for a 1-Hz rate. The study failed to present compelling evidence that the auditory system is sensitive to the relative phase of ITD modulations for the conditions tested. This suggests that the directional information of even slow ($1 Hz) ITD modulation is not combined effectively across frequencies, at least for the conditions tested.