Influence of simultaneous grouping mechanisms in the loudness judgment of a multi-tone mixture

Abstract

Our main concern is to understand how the perceptual organization of an acoustical mixture into distinct auditory objects (known as an ASA mechanism) can affect the judgments of loudness. Three main questions have been raised: Is the loudness of one auditory object influenced by concurrent objects? How the partial loudness of different auditory objects are combined into one global loudness percept? Does global loudness depend on the perceptual organization of the mixture? In the present experiment, the mixtures consisted of frequency-modulated harmonic complexes. The same or different modulation frequencies have been applied to the odd and even harmonics to ensure that participants perceived either one or two auditory objects, respectively. As a first result, when two objects were well segregated (without spectral masking), the loudness of one object in the mixture equaled the loudness of the same object presented alone. It suggests that spectral grouping mechanisms prevail over loudness. Then, the global loudness pattern obtained for two auditory objects as a function of their partial loudness will be drawn up. Global loudness modeling for two auditory objects will be discussed with regards to the predictions given by classical loudness models. [Research supported by the chair “MOUVIE”, carried by the UPMC.]