Object-based attention in complex, naturalistic auditory streams

Giorgio Marinato,Daniel Baldauf

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-39166-6

Abstract

In vision, objects have been described as the ‘units’ on which non-spatial attention operates in many natural settings. Here, we test the idea of object-based attention in the auditory domain within ecologically valid auditory scenes, composed of two spatially and temporally overlapping sound streams (speech signal vs. environmental soundscapes in Experiment 1 and two speech signals in Experiment 2). Top-down attention was directed to one or the other auditory stream by a non-spatial cue. To test for high-level, object-based attention effects we introduce an auditory repetition detection task in which participants have to detect brief repetitions of auditory objects, ruling out any possible confounds with spatial or feature-based attention. The participants’ responses were significantly faster and more accurate in the valid cue condition compared to the invalid cue condition, indicating a robust cue-validity effect of high-level, object-based auditory attention.

Highlights

IntroductionThe naturalistic auditory scene is composed of several concurrent sounds with their spectral features overlapping both in space and time
In many ecologic environments, the naturalistic auditory scene is composed of several concurrent sounds with their spectral features overlapping both in space and time
Within the domain of auditory selective attention, the experimental work that explicitly tried to tackle the interaction between top-down object-based attention and auditory scene analysis is relatively small in comparison to experimental work on the stimulus-based psychophysics of sound perception

Summary

Introduction

The naturalistic auditory scene is composed of several concurrent sounds with their spectral features overlapping both in space and time. The original term was introduced to describe the particular situation of a multi-talker environment, like a cocktail party, in which a person has to select a particular speech signal, filtering out other, distracting sound signals. The challenge in such a cocktail party situation is due to the fact that all the sounds in the auditory scene, sum together linearly into one single sound stream per ear. Object analysis may involve generalization across different sensory modalities, such as the correspondence between the auditory and visual domain[1] This operational definition has been used to define the neural representation of auditory objects[8]. Our definition borrows from the previous ones and is in line with the concept of acoustic stream, or ‘soundscape’, as a superordinate entity of individual objects[67]

Methods

Results

Conclusion