The subjective duration of ramped and damped sounds

Abstract

Two experiments demonstrate that the perceived durations of sounds as long as 1 sec are influenced by the sounds' amplitude envelopes, extending Schlauch, Ries, and DiGiovanni's (2001) observations on sounds of 200-msec duration. Sounds with a monotonic decay (i.e., damped sounds) are heard as substantially shorter than both steady sounds and those with a monotonic increase of level (i.e., ramped sounds). Neither a reaction time (Experiments 1 and 2) nor a staircase (Experiment 2) procedure supported a sensory explanation for these different subjective durations. The results are compatible with the suggestion of Stecker and Hafter (2000) that listeners exclude part of the tails of damped sounds in the computation of their subjective durations.

The role of temporal-masking patterns in the determination of subjective duration and loudness for ramped and damped sounds

“…These results are consistent with those reported previously ͑DiGiovanni and Schlauch, 2007;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;Schlauch et al, 2001b͒. That is, damped sounds are perceived as being shorter than ramped sounds of equivalent duration.…”

“…Prior studies have reported results for a variety of auditory phenomena including intensity discrimination ͑Schlauch et al, 1998͒, subjective duration ͑DiGiovanni and Schlauch, 2007;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;Schlauch et al, 2001a, 2001b͒, loudness ͑Irino and Patterson, 1996Neuhoff 1998Neuhoff , 2001Maier et al, 2004;Stecker and Hafter, 2000͒, and tonality ͑Patterson, 1994a. All of these studies, except that on intensity discrimination ͑Schlauch et al, 1998͒, report perceptual differences between ramped and damped stimuli of the same physical duration.…”

“…All of these studies, except that on intensity discrimination ͑Schlauch et al, 1998͒, report perceptual differences between ramped and damped stimuli of the same physical duration. Possible explanations for this perceptual asymmetry have included perceptual constancy ͑DiGiovanni and Schlauch, 2007;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;Stecker and Hafter, 2000͒ and persistence of excitation within the central auditory system ͑DiGiovanni and Schlauch 2007͒.…”

Asymmetry in perceived duration between up-ramp and down-ramp sounds as a function of duration

“…Major results have been achieved concerning the loudness asymmetries for a ramp duration of 1.8 s. However, recent results showed that the asymmetry still exists for longer durations (Ponsot et al, 2013). Up-ramps are also judged longer than down-ramps of the same physical duration (Schlauch et al, 2001;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;DiGiovanni and Schlauch, 2007;Ries et al, 2008;Grassi and Pavan, 2012). Most studies focused on the perceived duration asymmetry for durations shorter than 1 s. Globally it was found that the difference between the perceived duration of up-and down-ramps decreases as the duration increases from about 50 to 1000 ms (Schlauch et al, 2001;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;Ries et al, 2008;Grassi and Pavan, 2012).…”

“…Up-ramps are also judged longer than down-ramps of the same physical duration (Schlauch et al, 2001;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;DiGiovanni and Schlauch, 2007;Ries et al, 2008;Grassi and Pavan, 2012). Most studies focused on the perceived duration asymmetry for durations shorter than 1 s. Globally it was found that the difference between the perceived duration of up-and down-ramps decreases as the duration increases from about 50 to 1000 ms (Schlauch et al, 2001;Grassi and Darwin, 2006;Ries et al, 2008;Grassi and Pavan, 2012). In other words, up-ramps are perceived longer than down-ramps for durations up to 1 s. However, DiGiovanni and Schlauch (2007) found an increase in the asymmetry between 50 and 500 ms for broadband noises.…”