The role of perceived source location in auditory stream segregation: Separation affects sound organization, common fate does not

Abstract

The human auditory system is capable of grouping sounds originating from different sound sources into coherent auditory streams, a process termed auditory stream segregation. Several cues can influence auditory stream segregation, but the full set of cues and the way in which they are integrated is still unknown. In the current study, we tested whether auditory motion can serve as a cue for segregating sequences of tones. Our hypothesis was that, following the principle of common fate, sounds emitted by sources moving together in space along similar trajectories will be more likely to be grouped into a single auditory stream, while sounds emitted by independently moving sources will more often be heard as two streams. Stimuli were derived from sound recordings in which the sound source motion was induced by walking humans. Although the results showed a clear effect of spatial separation, auditory motion had a negligible influence on stream segregation. Hence, auditory motion may not be used as a primitive cue in auditory stream segregation.

Foreground‐background discrimination indicated by event‐related brain potentials in a new auditory multistability paradigm

“…We showed here that this ambiguity translates into multistability with prolonged exposure to the stimulus sequence. Behavioral reports indicated that participants experienced perceptual switching between the alternative sound organizations, similar to that shown by previous studies using the classic ABA auditory streaming paradigm (Bendixen et al., , ; Bőhm et al., ; Denham et al., , ; Denham & Winkler, ; Pressnitzer & Hupé, ; Roberts et al., ; Szalárdy, Bendixen et al., ). We thereby add a new option to the range of multistable phenomena in audition (Schwartz et al., ).…”

“…This type of sequence can be heard as one coherent sound stream consisting of all sounds (ABA‐ABA‐ABA‐; the “integrated” percept) or as two separate streams, one of which contains only the A sounds (A‐A‐A‐A‐A‐A‐) while the other stream contains only the B sounds (‐B—B—B‐; the “segregated” percept). Prolonged exposure to such sequences, where the A and B tones differ in some feature/s, leads to perception switching back and forth between the different interpretations (Bendixen et al., ; Bendixen, Denham, Gyimesi, & Winkler, ; Bőhm et al., ; Denham, Gyimesi, Stefanics, & Winkler, , ; Denham & Winkler, ; Pressnitzer & Hupé, ; Roberts, Glasberg, & Moore, ; Szalárdy, Bendixen, Tóth, Denham, & Winkler, ). Typically, experimenters using the auditory streaming paradigm asked participants to mark their perception in a manner so as to distinguish between the integrated and the segregated percepts, but not to further distinguish between “segregated‐A sound appearing in the foreground” and “segregated‐B sound appearing in the foreground.” In fact, it might be difficult for participants to make such a distinction because, given the relative simplicity of the stimulus configuration in the ABA paradigm, it is conceivable that the representations of the A and B streams are maintained in parallel, or that rapid switching between them occurs.…”

Stable individual characteristics in the perception of multiple embedded patterns in multistable auditory stimuli

“… Proportion of the total stimulus duration during which each pattern was perceived (color coded as indicated by the accompanying legend) for each condition, calculated from the condition transition matrices constructed by pooling the data from all participants for each condition (Bõhm et al, 2013) .…”

Do audio-visual motion cues promote segregation of auditory streams?

“…These perceptual switches occur even when the stimulus configuration strongly promotes one alternative organization over another (Denham et al, 2013 ). Although somewhat less commonly used, alternating (ABAB_) sequences are also typically perceived in terms of one integrated (alternating) or two segregated (A and B, separately) streams (e.g., Yabe et al, 2001 ; Shinozaki et al, 2003 ) and exposure to long alternating sequences results in perceptual bistability (perceptual bistability (Bőhm et al, 2013 ; Szalárdy et al, 2014 ).…”