Perception Of Auditory Events Research Articles

Stopy metryczne jako jednostki kształtujące przebieg utworu fortepianowego

Metric Feet as Units Shaping the Course of a Piano Piece: In this paper, I make an attempt to present the analytical possibilities offered by using metric feet as units that shape the course of a (piano) piece. This approach results from cognitive studies that clearly show that the perception of auditory events is based on grouping them into larger units on the basic strong–weak axis. In this approach, the foot is a scheme of one strong sound and one or two weak sounds (in different combinations) that repeats regularly in the course of the work. In this article, I present the most common ways of distinguishing strong sounds: using duration, dynamics, and pitch (features derived analogously from language, distinguishing strong syllables from the speech stream) and characterising the most common feet.

Identifying a Sound-Producing Object’s Direction of Motion and Change in Speed

ABSTRACT In natural settings, a wide variety of events frequently occur in our vicinity. Previous research has revealed individuals can accurately identify events when relying solely on what is heard. Although previous research suggests sound intensity is a dominant factor affecting event perception, event identification is likely dependent on additional acoustic variables. The present study examined the ability of individuals to identify and discriminate between events that had intersecting and variable temporal and acoustic properties. Participants were exposed to 60 audio recordings of an object that either moved in a particular direction (approached or withdrew) or changed in speed (accelerated or decelerated). The task of the participant was to identify which of four actions occurred on a particular trial. The findings revealed that, with the exception of events involving acceleration, participants were quite poor at event identification. The results further revealed object speed and event duration were the dominant factors affecting perceptual accuracy. It is argued that the observed perceptual error and perceptual ambiguity resulted from the variability and similarity in temporal and acoustic properties of the events used in the present study. The findings of the present study are believed to provide valuable insight into the information supporting auditory event perception and the ability of individuals to identify events in real-world settings.

Auditory meaningscapes—An ecological perspective on soundscape perception

As a semiotic resource, the soundscape carries information about events relevant to the perceiving organism. Throughout evolution, the auditory system has been shaped to detect, localize, and identify such significant events in the environment in order to initiate appropriate behavior. The sounds are, in other words, environmental sign vehicles to be picked up and utilized by the perceiving organism, allowing it to navigate in the surroundings, avoid potential dangers, etc. Far from being a passive receiver, the auditory system is an active semiotic tool for collecting information relevant for the given situation. From the rudimentary hearing system of simpler organisms to the complex human auditory system, perception of auditory events is functional and instrumental; it guides the perceiver’s behavior by carrying information about potential interactions with the environment. A growing number of studies suggest that auditory perception is intimately coupled with action and that listeners’ perception of soundscapes is structured around semantic categories related to events and activities taking place in the heard environment. Thus, I argue, to get a richer understanding of soundscapes, it is necessary to pay attention to the semiotic dynamics of the interaction between the perceiver and the sonic environment.

Auditory event perception: The source-perception loop for posture in human gait

There is a small but growing literature on the perception of natural acoustic events, but few attempts have been made to investigate complex sounds not systematically controlled within a laboratory setting. The present study investigates listeners' ability to make judgments about the posture (upright-stooped) of the walker who generated acoustic stimuli contrasted on each trial. We use a comprehensive three-stage approach to event perception, in which we develop a solid understanding of the source event and its sound properties, as well as the relationships between these two event stages. Developing this understanding helps both to identify the limitations of common statistical procedures and to develop effective new procedures for investigating not only the two information stages above, but also the decision strategies employed by listeners in making source judgments from sound. The result is a comprehensive, ultimately logical, but not necessarily expected picture of both the source-sound-perception loop and the utility of alternative research tools.

Perception of coarticulated speech with contrastively enhanced spectrotemporal patterns

High-level contrastive mechanisms cause perception of auditory events to be influenced by spectral and temporal properties of surrounding acoustic context, and may play a role in perceptual compensation for coarticulation in human speech. However, it is unknown whether auditory contrast is incorporated optimally to compensate for different speakers, languages and situations or whether amplification of the processes involved would provide additional benefit, for example, in the perception of hypoarticulated speech, under adverse listening conditions, or in an incompletely acquired language. This study examines effects of artificial contrastive modification of spectrotemporal trajectories on the intelligibility of connected speech in noise by native and non-native listeners. Adopting methods known to improve automatic classification of speech sounds, we model contrast-providing context as an averaged estimated vocal tract function (LPC-derived log area ratio coefficient vector) over a Gaussian-weighted temporal window. Local coefficient values are adjusted from this context based on previously observed contrastive perceptual tendencies, and the intelligibility of the resulting speech is compared with that of unmodified trajectories across listener language backgrounds. Results are discussed with respect to implementation and applicability of general auditory processes.

Stage analysis of auditory event perception: Posture in human gait

One ultimate goal of auditory research is to understand how we perceive natural events. In our conceptualization, there are three component stages to auditory event perception: the source event, the sounds produced, and perception of the event. The current study carefully examines each of these three components, and the inter-relationships among their properties. The auditory event class for the current study is human gait in a fixed environment (e.g., shoes, walking surface, room), with posture (upright versus stooped) manipulated within individual walkers. We analyze the source events in terms of both the anthropometrical and dynamic biomechanical properties of the individual walker, and sound in terms of temporal and spectral properties of sole and heel collisions with the floor. Finally, perception is evaluated in terms of accuracy in identifying source properties (e.g., posture). In addition to statistical analyses of source–sound, sound–perception, and source–perception relationships, the source–sound link is investigated using biomechanical modeling. These analyses provide a comprehensive picture of the relationships among our three conceptual stages as well as identifying what is, and is not, relevant to perception of this specific source event. [Research supported by NSF.]

What Do We Hear, When We Hear Music?: Music Perception and Musical Material

Theories of auditory event perception have highlighted a distinction between “everyday” and “musical” listening. This paper challenges this account of listening in two ways: first, it extends the notion of source specification to the specification of cultural and compositional categories, and second, it argues that listening to music involves listening to what sounds specify just as much as it involves listening to the acoustic characteristics of sounds. It is argued here that the characterisation of ‘musical’ listening as attending to the acoustic character of sound is a reflection of the prevailing reception ideology of the autonomous art work. This paper reports the results of two empirical studies which provide evidence for the perception of music in terms of categories of musical material (.i.e. what sounds specify). In the first study, participants were presented with triads of musical and everyday sounds presented in conflicting pairings and asked to identify the two that were most similar. In the second study listeners were asked to give commentaries on the sounds. These listening studies showed that while listeners pay attention to the acoustic properties of sounds they are also sensitive to what sounds specify (physical source, physical space and proximity, genre, musical function, performance skill, emotional attributes and social context). The results highlight the way in which listeners privilege particular kinds of specifications, and some of the factors involved in these choices are discussed briefly in relation to a performative theory of musical meaning.

Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

What in the World Do We Hear?: An Ecological Approach to Auditory Event Perception

Everyday listening is the experience of hearing events in the world rather than sounds per se. In this article, I take an ecological approach to everyday listening to overcome constraints on its study implied by more traditional approaches. In particular, I am concerned with developing a new framework for describing sound in terms of audible source attributes. An examination of the continuum of structured energy from event to audition suggests that sound conveys information about events at locations in an environment. Qualitative descriptions of the physics of sound~producing events, complemented by protocol studies, suggest a tripartite division of sound-producing events into those involving vibrating solids, gasses, or liquids. Within each of these categories, basic-level events are defined by the simple interactions that can cause these materials to sound, whereas more complex events can be described in terms of temporal patterning, compound, or hybrid sources. The results of these investigations are used to create a map of sound-producing events and their attributes useful in guiding further exploration.

Listening: The Perception of Auditory Events?

Listening: The Perception of Auditory Events?

Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events. Stephen Handel

<i>Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events</i>. Stephen Handel

Reviews: The Mind at Work: Psychological Ergonomics, Beauty and the Brain: Biological Aspects of Aesthetics, Current Directions in Computer Music Research, The World of Touch, Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Reviews: The Mind at Work: Psychological Ergonomics, Beauty and the Brain: Biological Aspects of Aesthetics, Current Directions in Computer Music Research, The World of Touch, Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening: an Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening: an Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening As Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening As Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events

Listening combines broad coverage of acoustics, speech and music perception psychophysics, and auditory physiology with a coherent theoretical orientation in a lively and accessible introduction to the perception of music and speech events.Handel treats the production and perception of music and speech in parallel throughout the text, arguing that their production and perception follows identical principles; music and speech share the same formal properties, involve the same cognitive mechanisms, and cannot exist in separate modules. The way that a sound is produced determines the physical properties of the acoustic wave. These properties in turn lead to the perception of the event.The initial chapters take up physical processes, including a section on characterization of sound and discussion of the way instruments and speech produce musical sound. Handel explains how the environment affects perceived sounds, including reflection, reverberation, diffraction, and the Doppler effect. Subsequent chapters take up psychological processes: partitioning smeared sounds into discrete events, identifying sound sources, the units and phrases of speech and music, and speech and music rhythms. The final chapter provides a detailed treatment of the physiology and neurophysiology of the auditory system.All of the author's explanations are coherent and clear, and this strategy includes discussing particular pieces of research in detail rather than covering many things superficially Handel analyzes causes as well as describing phenomena and sets out for the reader the difficulties inherent in the research methods he discusses. He defines the physical, musical, and psychological terms used, even the most basic ones, and covers all of the experimental methods and statistical procedures in the text.Stephen Handel is Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee. A Bradford Book.