Transformed Up-Down Methods in Psychoacoustics

Levitt, Harry

doi:10.1121/1.1912375

Cited by 5,076 publications

(3,413 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

3,312

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…A "2-down-1-up" rule was implemented, i.e., after two correct responses in a row, the stimulus level was decreased, and after one incorrect response, the level was increased. This procedure converges on the stimulus level that yields correct responses with a probability of 0.707 (Levitt 1971;Zwislocki and Relkin 2001). The starting level of the stimulus was always clearly above the expected threshold.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Towards a Unifying Basis of Auditory Thresholds: Binaural Summation

Heil

2014

JARO

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Absolute auditory threshold decreases with increasing sound duration, a phenomenon explainable by the assumptions that the sound evokes neural events whose probabilities of occurrence are proportional to the sound's amplitude raised to an exponent of about 3 and that a constant number of events are required for threshold (Heil and Neubauer, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100: [6151][6152][6153][6154][6155][6156] 2003). Based on this probabilistic model and on the assumption of perfect binaural summation, an equation is derived here that provides an explicit expression of the binaural threshold as a function of the two monaural thresholds, irrespective of whether they are equal or unequal, and of the exponent in the model. For exponents 90, the predicted binaural advantage is largest when the two monaural thresholds are equal and decreases towards zero as the monaural threshold difference increases. This equation is tested and the exponent derived by comparing binaural thresholds with those predicted on the basis of the two monaural thresholds for different values of the exponent. The thresholds, measured in a large sample of human subjects with equal and unequal monaural thresholds and for stimuli with different temporal envelopes, are compatible only with an exponent close to 3. An exponent of 3 predicts a binaural advantage of 2 dB when the two ears are equally sensitive. Thus, listening with two (equally sensitive) ears rather than one has the same effect on absolute threshold as doubling duration. The data suggest that perfect binaural summation occurs at threshold and that peripheral neural signals are governed by an exponent close to 3. They might also shed new light on mechanisms underlying binaural summation of loudness.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Towards a Unifying Basis of Auditory Thresholds: Binaural Summation

Heil

2014

JARO

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This staircase automatically converges on the 50% accuracy threshold. The number of consecutive correct or incorrect responses required can be manipulated to change the percent accuracy to which the staircase will converge (Levitt, 1971).…”

Section: Other Methods For Studying Mental Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncovering mental representations with Markov chain Monte Carlo

Sanborn

Griffiths

Shiffrin

2010

Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP URL' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. Richard M. Shiffrin Indiana University, Bloomington Abstract A key challenge for cognitive psychology is the investigation of mental representations, such as object categories, subjective probabilities, choice utilities, and memory traces. In many cases, these representations can be expressed as a non-negative function defined over a set of objects. We present a behavioral method for estimating these functions. Our approach uses people as components of a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm, a sophisticated sampling method originally developed in statistical physics. Experiments 1 and 2 verified the MCMC method by training participants on various category structures and then recovering those structures. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the MCMC method can be used estimate the structures of the real-world animal shape categories of giraffes, horses, dogs, and cats. Experiment 4 combined the MCMC method with multidimensional scaling to demonstrate how different accounts of the structure of categories, such as prototype and exemplar models, can be tested, producing samples from the categories of apples, oranges, and grapes.

show abstract

“…The stepsize between consecutively presented stimuli was initially set to six times the final value. After each stimulus presenta~on the stepsize was decreased to 6/N, where N is the trial number in that staircase, until a reversal with a stepsize of 1 occurred (Levitt, 1970). As measures of response variability were of some importance for this study, we were particularly concerned that reversals were independent.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integration of depth modules: Stereopsis and texture

Johnston¹,

1993

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Global shape judgements were employed to examine the combination of stereopsis and shape-from-texture in the determination of three-dimensional shape. Adding textural variations to stereograms increased perceived depth. Thus, texture was not simply vetoed by the strong stereo cue. In experiments where the depth specified by texture was incongruent with that specified by stereo, the data were well described by a weighted linear combination rule. Although only a small weight was assigned to texture, this weight was somewhat greater at a farther viewing distance. This could be a consequence of the decreased reliability of stereopsis at far viewing distances.

show abstract

Transformed Up-Down Methods in Psychoacoustics

Cited by 5,076 publications

References 22 publications

Towards a Unifying Basis of Auditory Thresholds: Binaural Summation

Towards a Unifying Basis of Auditory Thresholds: Binaural Summation

Uncovering mental representations with Markov chain Monte Carlo

Integration of depth modules: Stereopsis and texture

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About