Temporal patterning in an auditory illusion: the verbal transformation effect

Abstract

When the same syllable is presented repeatedly to a human subject, it undergoes perceptual changes known as verbal transformations. However, the dynamics of such perceptual changes is poorly understood. In the present work we show that the main organization of the perceptual transitions is into pairs. This pairwise coupling is pronounced in the frequency of switching to pair members, but not in their dwell times (the time spent perceiving a given phonemic form before switching to another form). We show that the paircoupled transforms of perception have a faster and more stable dynamic than the nonpaircoupled transforms. We also demonstrate that the pairwise coupling is stronger than would be expected from random arrangement of small numbers of transforms. These characteristic patterns of verbal transforms have been predicted by a mathematical model, first proposed as a model of perceptual alternations of ambiguous visual figures.

Acoustic foundations of the speech-to-song illusion.

“…Similarly, Kuhl & Anderson (2011) found inhibited recall from memory only after twenty seconds of repetition, whereas between five and ten seconds of repetition enhanced recall. Second, the verbal transformation effect is perceptually unstable; listeners report that words oscillate back and forth between a number of different percepts (Warren & Gregory, 1958;Warren, 1961;Natsoulas, 1965;Warren, 1968;Goldstein & Lackner, 1973;Ditzinger, Tuller, & Kelso, 1997;Kaminska & Mayer, 2002;Bashford et al, 2006;Bashford et al, 2008). No such instability has been reported for the song illusion, although its perceptual stability has not been formally investigated.…”

Linking verbal transformations to their causes.

“…In recent work, Ditzinger, Tuller, and Kelso (1997) found evidence that switching is not always random but can involve rapid and long alternations between pairs of transformations, suggesting that there may be a coupling mechanism that underlies the illusion much like that responsible for alternating between views of a reversible figure.…”

Stream segregation of concurrent speech and the verbal transformation effect: Influence of fundamental frequency and lateralization cues

“…The first three measures have been used widely in studies of the VTE since the pioneering research by Warren; to our knowledge, the fourth measure was first introduced by Ditzinger et al (1997). We also devised three customized indices to explore the relatedness of responses across the concurrent sequences.…”

“…It has also long been recognized that the VTE shares some common features with the temporal characteristics of the shifts in perceptual organization associated with reversible and multistable visual figures (e.g., Warren and Gregory, 1958;Ditzinger et al, 1997); indeed, recent research using neuroimaging has provided evidence that common functional brain networks underlie perceptual switching in auditory streaming and in verbal transformations (Kashino and Kondo, 2012). However, it is only since the millennium that the relationship between the VTE and cues for auditory stream segregation (Bregman and Campbell, 1971;Bregman, 1990) has been explored in any detail.…”