Behavioral measures of auditory streaming in humans and ferrets.

Abstract

The perceptual organization of sound sequences into auditory streams, or “auditory streaming,” is an essential component of the analysis of acoustic scenes by humans and other animals. The development of behavioral paradigms for measuring auditory streaming in human and non-human listeners is an important step toward a better understanding of the similarities and differences in sound perception between humans and other species. In this talk, we will present the results of recent studies performed in collaboration between our groups at the universities of Minnesota and Maryland concerning performance-based measures of auditory streaming in humans and ferrets. In particular, we will describe two complementary temporal discrimination tasks, one of which can be used to induce and measure stream segregation, while the other can be used to promote and measure stream integration in a listener. Because these tasks use similar stimuli, they are especially suitable for use in studies of neural correlates of streaming percepts without stimulus confounds. In addition, we will describe the results of behavioral measures of auditory streaming and informational masking in ferrets, using stimuli and tasks that were directly inspired by psychoacoustical experiments in humans. [Work supported by NIDCD R01 DC 07657.]