Auditory Messages Research Articles

Auditory versus Visual Presentation of Help Messages

The primary goal of this research was to examine the relative effectiveness of help messages presented aurally versus those presented visually. Additional goals were to evaluate help messages baselined for a next-generation product and to identify improvement opportunities for these messages. Three formats were evaluated: paper instructions (user card), visual help messages presented on a computer-simulated telephone's display screen, and auditory help messages. Thirty-six subjects performed two different tasks using a computer-based on-screen simulation of a telephone. Dependent measures consisted of time to complete the tasks, error rate, and subjective measures of how easy the tasks were and how well subjects liked the instructions they received. An analysis of variance indicated that tasks performed using auditory help messages had a significantly lower error rate than did those tasks performed using visual instructions. No significant differences were found among the formats for task completion time or task ease, but there was a significantly greater preference for instructions that included display help messages accompanied by a user card.

Perception of Distorted Auditory Messages under the Influence of Alcohol

Several short auditory messages with different levels of distortion were presented to volunteer subjects under the influence of no, small, medium and large dosages of alcohol. Accuracy of perception as measured by the number of correct words and sentences was progressively worse in subjects with higher BAC levels. Thus, amount of alcohol produced corresponding reduction in the comprehension of distorted auditory stimuli. This does not support popular suggestions that use of drugs enhances perception and cognitive function. It is possible that substances that enhance personal significance of stimuli worsen social communication about these stimuli.

Earcons and Icons: Their Structure and Common Design Principles

In this article we examine earcons, which are audio messages used in the user-computer interface to provide information and feedback to the user about computer entities. (Earcons include messages and functions, as well as states and labels.) We identify some design principles that are common to both visual symbols and auditory messages, and discuss the use of representational and abstract icons and earcons. We give some examples of audio patterns that may be used to design modules for earcons, which then may be assembled into larger groupings called families. The modules are single pitches or rhythmicized sequences of pitches called motives. The families are constructed about related motives that serve to identify a family of related messages. Issues concerned with learning and remembering earcons are discussed.

The case against subliminal manipulation

AbstractClaims persist that subliminal messages can have significant effects on motives and behavior. Among the more dramatic declarations are claims that: (1) subliminal auditory messages can induce weight loss, smoking cessation, etc., (2) reversed speech messages in popular music can corrupt youthful listeners, (3) psychotherapy can be facilitated by the subliminal stimulation of unconscious wishes, and (4) advertisers can exploit consumers by means of subliminal directives. A review of the pertinent research purporting to demonstrate these claims was conducted. It is concluded that there continues to be no evidence that subliminal messages can influence motivation or complex behavior.

Dichotic-listening evidence of right-hemisphere involvement in recovery from aphasia following stroke.

A dichotic-listening procedure was used to investigate the role of the right hemisphere in recovery from aphasia following left-hemisphere stroke. Thirty-one stroke patients were divided into three groups: (a) patients who were recovering from aphasia (Aphasic group, n = 11), (b) patients who had experienced mild strokes with only transient dysarthria (Dysarthric group, n = 10), and (c) patients who had sustained right-hemisphere stroke with no language disturbance (Nonaphasic group, n = 10). In addition, a group of normal, healthy volunteers served as a control group (n = 11). Results show that, like the Control subjects, the Dysarthrics and Nonaphasics showed a strong right-ear advantage (REA) for dichotically presented consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. This is usually thought to be an indication of left-hemisphere dominance (Kimura, 1961). By contrast, the Aphasic group showed left-ear advantage (LEA) suggesting a shift in cerebral dominance for language. The possibility that the results were due to sensory degradation of the auditory messages (lesion effect) was explored. This idea was rejected in favor of an explanation based on increased right-hemisphere mediation of language following left-hemisphere aphasiogenic lesions.

Effects of Stimulus Characteristics and Task Demands on Pilots' Perception of Dichotic Messages

The experiment is an initial investigation of pilot performance when auditory advisory messages are presented dichotically, either with or without a concurrent pursuit task requiring visual/motor dexterity. The dependent measures were percent correct and correct reaction times for manual responses to the auditory messages. Two stimulus variables which show facilitory effects in traditional dichotic-listening paradigms, differences in pitch and semantic content of the messages, were examined to determine their effectiveness during the functional simulation of helicopter pursuit. In an effort to further manipulate task demands competition between pairs of subjects was varied; subjects accumulated points for the advisory messages for accuracy alone or for both accuracy and reaction times which were faster than their opponent's. In general, the combined effects of the stimulus and task variables are additive. When interactions do occur they suggest that an increase in task demands can sometimes mitigate, but usually does not remove, any processing advantages accrued from stimulus characteristics. The implications of these results for cockpit displays are discussed.

The effect of receiver beamwidth on the detection time of a message from Talking Signs, an auditory orientation aid for the blind.

Talking Signs, an orientation aid for blind people, delivering an auditory message through a loudspeaker in a receiver, presupposes that the user directs his/her receiver to a transmitter in order to get the message. The time of making this orientation of the receiver and detecting the message was studied, when the beamwidth of the receiver was varied. The results indicated that detection time decreased with increasing beamwidth, but the difference between the two widest beamwidths was not significant. When considering also direction accuracy, it is likely that optimal detection time is gained with a beamwidth of about 24 degrees. It was also found, that some subjects decreased their detection time with training. No differences were found between blind and sighted participants.

Meta-Attention: Do we know when we are Being Distracted?

Abstract In two procedures, subjects were asked to perform an arithmetic task while hearing distracting auditory messages. Subjects were instructed to ignore these messages. After each trial, subjects judged how disruptive they felt that trial's distractor had been. Subjects' self-reports were unrelated to the actual distraction effect, measured in performance. In Experiment 2, a manipulation of motivation considerably decreased the auditory messages' ability to distract; this large shift in distractor potency was not reflected in subjects' self-reports. In both procedures, subjects' judgments of distraction were not random but were systematically related to parameters of message content, parameters that turned out to be irrelevant for distractor potency.

Psychoticism and sexual arousal to rape depictions

This study tested the hypothesis that high scorers on the Eysencks' P scale would become more sexually aroused by erotic material of a violent nature than low scorers. One hundred and forty-five college Ss were exposed to erotic auditory messages varying in degree of violence and pain experienced by the victim. Personality was assessed by a median split on the Eysencks' P scale. Sexual arousal was assessed by mercury strain gauge and self-report. Results, as predicted, showed a significant interaction between psychoticism and level of violence (rape vs nonrape): high P scorers showing greater sexual arousal (by both self-report and physiological assessment) to rape as compared to nonrape depictions whereas the opposite pattern occurred for low P scorers.

A selective attention test as a predictor of success in flight training.

Incorporation of a dichotic listening task of selective attention in the pilot selection test battery of the Israeli Air Force was studied using a group of 2000 flight cadets. In this test, subjects are presented with 48 auditory messages. Each message is composed of strings of words and digit names. Different strings are simultaneously presented to the two ears. Subjects are required to detect digit names in the relevant channel and to reconsider channel relevance upon indication. Three types of selective listening errors are recorded: omissions, intrusions, and switching errors. Flight cadets who had completed a two-year training program had significantly lower error scores on all attention measures. In addition, these measures had low correlations with all other tests of the pilot selection battery. Thus, attention capabilities appear to be an independent dimension that enhances the predictive validity of the present test battery.

Subliminal perception and the levels of activation

The influence of the auditory subliminal messages on the level of activation has been evaluated through a double-blind study. Twenty consenting subjects were alternately submitted to activating and deactivating subliminal messages. Activation changes were estimated through the variations in the scores at the Mood Adjective Check List. Five out of this test's six factors concerned by the content of the subliminal messages responded differently according to the nature of these messages; four factors did so to a statistically significant degree. These results tend to indicate that auditory subliminal perceptions can influence the level of activation. The authors raise several questions, especially stressing that the parameters regulating subliminal response and susceptibility remain largely undefined and in need of systematic investigation.

The interaction of hemispheric preference, laterality, and sex in the perception of emotional tone and verbal content.

Twenty male and 20 female subjects, divided into those who showed a right or left hemispheric preference, listened to auditory messages with conflicting verbal content and emotional tone. The messages were presented to each ear to determine whether the effect of hemisphere of input on the evaluation of the messages was modified by hemispheric preference. Except for left preference males, subjects responded on the basis of preference rather than laterality.

Ear Differences and Implied Cerebral Lateralization on Some Intellective Auditory Factors

A battery of auditory tests was given under the conditions of monaural and binaural presentation. The results indicated that both primary and second-order factors were similar to those found earlier with the same tests. The hierarchical solu tion also indicated that most of the differences be tween the conditions of presentation occurred at the lowest order of factoring. Differences between the means showed the same trends as those reported in the literature on hemispheric specialization. Ob tained first-order factors were interpreted as Tonal Memory, Speech Perception Under Distraction/Dis tortion, and Maintaining and Judging Rhythm, all representing a measure of General Auditory Func tion. In addition, a broad first-order factor of Fluid Intelligence was identified along with Temporal Tracking, representing an interesting new com ponent. Although General Auditory Function is a broad perceptual factor akin to General Visualiza tion, it differs from the latter in an important way. It is suggested that competition between the audi tory messages may be typical of General Auditory Function but that the hemispheric localization is not.

Processing of words presented simultaneously to eye and ear.

The simultaneous processing of auditorily and visually presented messages was examined in three experiments. Subjects searched lists of words for a target word while processing auditorily presented information. Across conditions, subjects searched for (a) target words in a list of words presented auditorily, (b) the same target words in lists presented visually, (c) a member of a taxonomic category in a visually presented list, and (d) a rhyme in a list of words presented visually. The level of processing of a simultaneous auditory message varied across experiments. In experiment 1, subjects shadowed lists of digits. In Experiment 2, subjects reported the antonym of each word in a list. In Experiment 3, subjects named the taxonomic category of each word in a list. In all three experiments, subject had high detection rates for target words presented visually and for category targets but low detection rates for target words presented auditorily and for rhyme targets. These results suggest that processing the semantic properties, but not the acoustic properties, of words presented to the visual modality is independent of simultaneous processing in the auditory modality. Implication for models of selective attention are discussed.

Location vs. frequency of pure tones as a basis of fast discrimination

There are ample data suggesting that a spatial difference between two competing auditory messages provides a better basis for selective attention and listening than other differences. The present experiments show that the spatial difference (left vs. right ear) between two auditory inputs leads to their faster discrimination than even large differences in frequency (in the same ear). These results might explain the afore-mentioned privileged status of the spatial dimension as a basis of selective attention: spatial differences lead in faster identification of relevant or attended input than differences in other dimensions.

The Effects of Stimulus and Response Modalities and Task Loading on Dual-Task Performance

Recent advances in artificial intelligence technology have resulted in commercially available computer systems that are able to synthesize auditory messages and to recognize spoken words and phrases in near-real-time with a high level of reliability. Several researchers have enumerated the benefits that are expected to accrue from computer recognition of speech (1971, 1975). Beek, Neuberg, and Hodge (1977) summarized the possible applications of this new technology to military systems. Curran (1978) and Coler, Plummer, Huff and Hitchcock (1978) reported significant progress in the development of automated speech understanding systems for the control of on-board systems in military aircraft.

Rehearsing and retaining mental matrices

In the basic experimental paradigm, students listened to one set of auditory messages which described the placements of eight numbers in an imaginable matrix and then listened to another set of messages describing the placements of numbers in a second imaginable matrix. This paradigm was varied by informing or not informing students which of the two matrices would be tested before the messages for either matrix were presented, by asking students to add together the contents of the two matrices, or by introducing different, potentially interfering tasks as part of the paradigm. Recall was tested by asking students to write in the correct cells of a blank matrix. Both matrices were recalled equally well when students expected to recall both. Further, the contents of the two matrices could be added together with accuracy above a chance level. Opportunities to rehearse improved recall. No decrement in recall was produced by conditions such as subtraction or cancelling numbers or listening to messages describing an image that would not be tested. The conditions that reduced retention were ones that required reporting the contents of the matrices in an order which differed from the input order or that required the recall of a second image. These results appeared to be consistent with a modified level of processing approach.

Does Shadowing Differentially Unlock Attention?

Experiments on selective auditory attention have made extensive use of the technique of speech 'shadowing,' first introduced by Cherry (1953). In shadowing, the subject is instructed to attend to an auditory message while simultaneously repeating it aloud. As Moray (1969a) has suggested, 'verbal tracking' is more descriptive of the task. It is assumed that shadowing 'locks' the subject's attention onto the shadowed message (Moray, 1969b). Specifically, experimental evidence has indicated that a subject who is shadowing one of two simultaneously presented messages can determine the content of the shadowed message, but not of the nonshadowed message (Cherry, 1953; Moray, 1959; Mowbray, 1964; Treisman, 1964; Treisman and Riley, 1969; Moray, 1969b). However, these experiments have further indicated that subjects can easily detect the gender of a speaker for both the shadowed and nonshadowed messages. While shadowing is known to have a detrimental effect on the subject's attending to the content of a nonshadowed message, its effect on the shadowed message is unknown. Does it increase the amount of attention given to that message, or decrease it? While it has been assumed that shadowing increases the amount of attention given to the shadowed message, that assumption is untested. It is important that the effects of shadowing be better understood, since a number of theoretical models of selective attention are based on that technique (Treisman, 1960; Deutsch and Deutsch, 1963; Norman, 1969; Moray, 1969). The present experiment, therefore, was designed to clarify the effects of shadowing on both the shadowed and nonshadowed messages.

The retention of imagined and seen spatial matrices

The nature of imagery and its relationship to perception were probed by having students recall the contents of 4 × 4 spatial matrices after they constructed the matrices through processes of imagery, seeing, or verbal coding. In the imagery and verbal conditions, students listened to auditory messages which described the matrices. Students in the imagery condition were instructed to imagine the matrix being described; students in the verbal condition received no imagery instructions; and students in the seeing condition saw the matrix for an inspection period prior to recall. Recall was best when students saw the matrices, intermediate in the imagery situation, and poorest in the verbal situation. Recall was best for the corner cells of seen and imagined matrices, indicating the spatial nature of these processes; no such effect was found for verbal processing. Forgetting over a 10-sec interval occurred only for verbal processing. Implications for understanding the nature of visual imagery and perception are discussed.

Attending to visual or auditory verbal information while performing other concurrent tasks.

Investigation of the effect that a word recognition task has on concurrent nonverbal tasks showed (a) auditory verbal messages affected visual tracking performance but not the detection of brief light flashes in the visual periphery, (b) greater impairment, both of tracking and light detections, when verbal messages were visual rather than auditory. With a kinaesthetic tracking task, errors increased significantly during auditory messages but were even greater during visual messages. There was no interaction between the modality of tracking error feedback (auditory or visual) and the modality of the verbal message. Nor was the decrement from visual messages reduced by changing the presentation format. It is suggested that different temporal characteristics of visual and auditory information affect the attentional demands of verbal messages.