Studies in auditory timing: 1. Simple patterns

Abstract

Listeners' accuracy in discriminating one temporal pattern from another was measured in three psychophysical experiments. When the standard pattern consisted of equally timed (isochronic) brief tones, whose interonset intervals (lOIs) were 50, 100, or 200 msec, the accuracy in detecting an asynchrony or deviation of one tone in the sequence was about as would be predicted from older research on the discrimination of single time intervals (~-~at an IOI of 200 msec, 11%-12% at an 101 of 100 msec, and almost 20% at an 101 of 50 msec). In a series of 6 or 10 tones, this accuracy was independent of position of delay for lOIs of 100 and 200 msec. At 50 msec, however, accuracy depended on position, being worst in initial positions and best in final positions. When one tone in a series of six has a frequency different from the others, there is some evidence (at 101 = 200 msec) that interval discrimination is relatively poorer for the tone with the different frequency. Similarly, even if all tones have the same frequency but one interval in the series is made twice as long as the others, temporal discrimination is poorer for the tones bordering the longer interval, although this result is dependent on tempo or 10I. Results with these temporally more complex patterns may be interpreted in part by applying the relative Weber ratio to the intervals before and after the delayed tone. Alternatively, these experiments may show the influence of accent on the temporal discrimination of individual tones.Temporal aspects of auditory perception, including observations on recognition and discrimination of rhythmic patterns as well as models and theories of timing and rhythmic groups, have recently become the subject of a rich body of literature, particularly in music perception. Different studies have emphasized different aspectspreference for certain phrases, recognition of melodic segments, imitative tapping to infer a "representation" of patterns, and so forth. Our interest here, somewhat less grand, concerns listeners' accuracy in the discrimination of temporal patterns.The timing of successive elements in an auditory pattern is critical for the identification both of particular sounds and of characteristics of patterns as a whole. The perception of stress in speech or of accent and rhythmic structure in music requires at least that listeners can discriminate different dimensions of individual sounds, including duration, and also different time intervals separating the onsets of successive sounds. The classical literature on temporal discrimination (Woodrow, 1951) suggests that for a reasonably large range of standard time values, discrimination is reliably good when deviations from the standard are of the order of 10%. Woodrow's chapter dis- tinguishes clearly between two types of intervals used in studies on temporal discrimination: (1) empty intervals, or the time intervening between two boundary events, whether sounds or lights, and (2) continuous stimuli, in which judgments are made about the apparent duration of the events...

Perceptual attenuation of nonfocused auditory streams

“…It would therefore be possible to compare JNDs for the three streams in later experiments in which the stream might or might not be cued. The JNDs obtained here for a temporal irregularity are in a similar range to those that have been found previously under slightly different conditions (Halpern & Darwin, 1982;Hirsh, Monahan, Grant, & Singh, 1990;.…”

Tempo sensitivity in auditory sequences: Evidence for a multiple-look model

“…This is true within a range of 200-2,000 msec, and the actual precision depends on many different factors, in particular the method used and the physical characteristics of the events marking the intervals. A similar level of sensitivity is also found when subjects are asked to detect a change in duration of one or two of the intervals contained in regular and rhythmic sequences (Drake, 1990(Drake, , 1992(Drake, , 1993Drake, Botte, & Gerard, 1989;Drake, Gerard, & Botte, in press;Halpern & Darwin, 1982;Hirsh, Monahan, Grant, & Singh, 1990;van Noorden, 1975). However, when subjects are asked to compare the rate or tempo of two isochronous sequences, the little data available suggests that subjects are much more sensitive to changes, since they are able to detect a change of about 2% (Michon, 1964).…”

Sonification design for complex work domains: Dimensions and distractors.

“…The psychoacoustic literature provides basic guidance about the sensitivity of the auditory system to changes in specific auditory dimensions (e.g., Drake, Botte, & Baruch, 1992;Handel, 1989;Hirsh, Monahan, Grant, & Singh, 1990;Moore, 1997). These data may be of limited relevance, however, to the problems of sonification design (Anderson & Sanderson, 2004;Walker & Kramer, 2004) for several reasons.…”