Auditory change detection with common and uncommon sounds

Abstract

Change deafness, the inability to detect a change in an auditory scene, is similar to change blindness, the inability to detect a change in a visual scene. In this experiment, participants were asked to detect changes in auditory scenes (one, three, or five sounds). The sounds were either common sounds (e.g. alarm clock) or uncommon sounds (e.g. science fiction laser). Only one sound was modified in pitch or loudness for half of the trials. Participants were not always able to detect changes in a sound sequence (M = 67.1%) even though they could almost perfectly discriminate between the ten sounds (M = 99.2%). Participants performed best with a scene size of one (M = 82.6%) and worse with a scene size of five (M = 63.8%). Participants performed significantly better with common sounds (M = 74.7%) vs. uncommon sounds (M = 69.1%). Participants were significantly better at detecting a pitch change (M = 80.8%) than a loudness change (M = 53.5%). These results are consistent with the idea of change deafness. We remember the gist of an auditory scene but we don’t detect changes in every sound.