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Perceptual asymmetries in audition
Authors:
CUSACK, R., & CARLYON, R.P
Reference:
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29(3), 713-25
Year of publication:
2003
CBU number:
5352
Abstract:
Visual search experiments have demonstrated that selecting a target from distractors is usually easier when the target contains a feature not present in the distractors. In addition, many authors have proposed a stage of feature extraction before recognition, a position supported by neurophysiological evidence. We describe six experiments investigating the hypothesis that there are perceptual asymmetries in audition, roughly analogous to those observed in studies of visual feature extraction . Strong perceptual asymmetries were identified, with frequency modulated targets easier to detect amongst pure tone distractors than vice-versa. This asymmetry occurred both when the sounds were entirely sequential and the modulation close to threshold, and when the modulation was highly suprathreshold and many possibly overlapping sounds were presented. An asymmetry was also found for duration, with longer sounds easier to select from short distractors than the reverse. We demonstrate that this asymmetry is not a result of peripheral limitation. In contrast, no asymmetries were observed between high-and-low-frequency tones, or between short three-tone sequences differing only in their temporal structure. The results are discussed with reference to the relationship between perceptual grouping and attention, the applicability of analogies between vision and audition, and physiological evidence for feature detectors obtained from single-cell recordings in animals.