Abstract
This study investigated attentional factors involved in two-channel auditory signal detection. The brief 50 msec sinusoidal signals, masked by binaurally uncorrelated, band-limited noise, were presented simultaneously to two separate earphone channels each with an independent probability of 0.5. The two-channel detection tasks required observers to monitor one (selective attention condition) or both (divided attention condition) of the earphone channels. Compared to the single channel condition, observers showed a slight (1–3 dB), but consistent, decrement in detection performance in both the selective and divided attention conditions with signals separated in frequency by less than one critical band (Δf=65 Hz). With signals separated in frequency by more than one critical band (Δf=1565 Hz), observers again showed a slight performance decrement when dividing their attention between two earphone channels, but could effectively monitor one channel while attempting to ignore the other. [This work was supported by a grant from NINDS.]
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