Effect of context on identification of environmental sounds

Abstract

This study investigated the role of auditory context in identifying individual environmental sounds. Limited previous research has not demonstrated a facilitatory influence of context on sound identification comparable to the benefits grammatical context provides for identifying speech sounds. Unlike some previous studies, in which context was determined by sound presented sequentially before and after the target environmental sound, in the present experiments the sounds to be identified were mixed in with a background of naturally occurring auditory scenes, such as the ambience of a beach or a street. Thirty-one familiar environmental sounds from previous environmental sounds studies were presented mixed either with congruent scenes (such as hammering at a construction site) or incongruent scenes (such as a horse galloping in a restaurant). The sounds were presented at signal-to-background ratios of −12 and −16 dB and trained listeners identified them using three-letter codes. Results indicate auditory context had a small but significant effect on identification performance. However, contrary to expectations, the sounds were identified more accurately in incongruent scenes (55% correct) rather than congruent ones (46% correct). The differential effects of auditory attention in determining foreground and background sounds will be discussed in connection with the results.