Issues in the use of acoustic cues for auditory scene analysis

Abstract

Issues concerning auditory scene analysis (ASA) raised by the previous speakers will be discussed: (1) Disorders of ASA in humans can tell us about the weighting of cues in ASA. (2) The apparent weakness of spatial cues for ASA may simply show that they interact strongly with other ASA cues (c.f., recent research in the author’s lab). (3) The power of harmonic relations among partials as a grouping cue is not guaranteed, but depends on many other factors. (4) Abstract models of ASA may require the peripheral auditory system to carry out analyses that are questionable, based on current psychophysical and physiological findings. Is this where psychologists and computational ASA (CASA) modelers part company? (5) The ‘‘old-plus-new heuristic,’’ one of the most potent ASA mechanisms, is neglected by existing CASA models. (6) The different roles of bottom-up and top-down processes (e.g., in ‘‘exclusive allocation’’ of sensory evidence) should be reflected in models. (7) Should the output of a CASA system be the reconstructed signal of a single source, as a front end to a recognition system, or should grouping mechanisms merely form an interacting part of a larger system that outputs a higher-level description (e.g., a series of words)?