Auditory Pattern Perception Research Articles

Sandra Trehub (1938–2023)

Research Article| April 01 2023 Sandra Trehub (1938–2023) E. Glenn Schellenberg, E. Glenn Schellenberg Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Laurel J. Trainor Laurel J. Trainor McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Music Perception (2023) 40 (4): 347–349. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2023.40.4.347 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation E. Glenn Schellenberg, Laurel J. Trainor; Sandra Trehub (1938–2023). Music Perception 1 April 2023; 40 (4): 347–349. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2023.40.4.347 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentMusic Perception Search We are greatly saddened by the passing of Sandra Trehub. Born in 1938, she died peacefully at her home on January 20, 2023. Sandra was a trailblazer. Her research focusing on auditory pattern perception in infancy and early childhood single-handedly started developmental research in music perception and cognition. Her experimental studies documented that infants have basic skills that form the building blocks for remembering and responding emotionally to music, including the capability to perceive and categorize auditory sequences on the basis of pitch, upward or downward changes in pitch, and rhythm. Her research also established that singing to infants is a universal behavior, which ultimately facilitates language acquisition and bonding with caregivers. A fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the British Psychological Society, Sandra was awarded many honors, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and the Kurt Koffka Medal from the... You do not currently have access to this content.

Common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) cannot recognize global configurations of sound patterns but can recognize adjacent relations of sounds

Processing the temporal configuration of discrete sounds to extract a regular pattern is fundamental to humans’ faculties of perceiving words and musical phrases. To investigate such auditory pattern perception in monkeys, I trained two common marmosets to discriminate between AB-AB and AA-BB patterns under two training paradigms. One was an absolute discrimination task, in which the discrimination between these stimuli without reference cues was required. The other was a relative discrimination task, in which the detection of a change from one stimulus to the other was required. The marmosets failed in the absolute discrimination task but achieved the relative discrimination task. Failure in the absolute task indicated that the marmosets were unable to form a representation of the global sound patterns in their long-term memory stores. In contrast, success in the relative task indicated that the marmosets had short-term memory of ongoing sounds that enabled an online monitoring to detect deviations between incoming sounds and the anticipated upcoming sounds. Thus, the current findings imply that marmosets can at least perceive adjacent tone relations in an auditory stream regardless of the temporal configuration of the global sound patterns.

A neural circuit for song pattern recognition in the cricket brain

Acoustic communication is based on amplitude and frequency modulation of sound signals. Temporal features of the signal require processing by central auditory neurons, the brain circuits, however that detect temporal features are poorly understood. We show how five neurons in the brain of female field crickets form an auditory feature-detector circuit for the pulse pattern of the male calling song, and exhibit properties of a delay-line and coincidence-detection mechanism. The network receives its direct input from a single ascending auditory interneuron. An internal delay that matches the pulse period of the calling song is established by a non-spiking brain neuron. In response to a sound pulse, it generates a transient inhibition that triggers a delayed rebound depolarization. The direct input and the delayed responses converge in a coincidence detector neuron, which responds best to the pulse pattern of the species-specific calling song as the rebound activation of the non-spiking neuron coincides with the response of the ascending interneuron to the subsequent sound pulse. The output of the coincidence detector neuron is further processed by a feature detector neuron to suppress unselective responses and background activity. The circuit reveals principal mechanisms of sensory processing underlying the perception of temporal auditory patterns.

A computer-based auditory sequential pattern test for school-aged children

ObjectiveOne type of test commonly used to assess auditory processing disorders (APD) is the Frequency Pattern Test, in which triads of pure tones of two different frequencies are presented, and participants are required to accurately report the sequence of tones, typically using a verbal response. The test is widely used clinically, but in its current format, is an under-exploited means of addressing some candidate processes, such as temporal ordering and frequency discrimination, which might be affected in APD. Here we describe a computer-based version of an auditory pattern perception test, the BirdSong Game, which was designed to be an engaging research tool for use with school-aged children. MethodsIn this study, 128 children aged 6–10 with normal peripheral hearing were tested. The BirdSong Game application was used to administer auditory sequential pattern tests, via a touch-screen presentation and response interface. A conditioning step was included prior to testing, in order to ensure that participants were able to adequately discriminate between the test tones, and reliably describe the difference using their own vocabulary. Responses were collected either verbally or manually, by having participants press cartoon images on the touch-screen in the appropriate sequence. The data was examined for age, gender and response mode differences. ResultsFindings on the auditory tests indicated a significant maturational effect across the age range studied, with no difference between response modes or gender. ConclusionsThe BirdSong Game is sensitive to maturational changes in auditory sequencing ability, and the computer-based design of the test has several advantages which make it a potentially useful clinical and research tool.

Data density and trend reversals in auditory graphs

Auditory graphs—displays that represent quantitative information with sound—have the potential to make data (and therefore science) more accessible for diverse user populations. No research to date, however, has systematically addressed the attributes of data that contribute to the complexity (the ease or difficulty of comprehension) of auditory graphs. A pair of studies examined the role of data density (i.e., the number of discrete data points presented per second) and the number of trend reversals for both point-estimation and trend-identification tasks with auditory graphs. For the point-estimation task, more trend reversals led to performance decrements. For the trend-identification task, a large main effect was again observed for trend reversals, but an interaction suggested that the effect of the number of trend reversals was different across lower data densities (i.e., as density increased from 1 to 2 data points per second). Results are discussed in terms of data sonification applications and rhythmic theories of auditory pattern perception.

Auditory psychophysics and perception.

In this review of auditory psychophysics and perception, we cite some important books, research monographs, and research summaries from the past decade. Within auditory psychophysics, we have singled out some topics of current importance: Cross-Spectral Processing, Timbre and Pitch, and Methodological Developments. Complex sounds and complex listening tasks have been the subject of new studies in auditory perception. We review especially work that concerns auditory pattern perception, with emphasis on temporal aspects of the patterns and on patterns that do not depend on the cognitive structures often involved in the perception of speech and music. Finally, we comment on some aspects of individual difference that are sufficiently important to question the goal of characterizing auditory properties of the typical, average, adult listener. Among the important factors that give rise to these individual differences are those involved in selective processing and attention.

When acoustic sequences are not perceptual sequences: the global perception of auditory patterns.

Warren, Bashford, and Gardner (1990) found that when sequences consisting of 10 40-msec steady-state vowels were presented in recycled format, minimal changes in order (interchanging the position of two adjacent phonemes) produced easily recognizable differences in verbal organization, even though the vowel durations were well below the threshold for identification of order. The present study was designed to determine if this ability to discriminate between different arrangements of components is limited to speech sounds subject to verbal organization, or if it reflects a more general auditory ability. In the first experiment, 10 40-msec sinusoidal tones were substituted for the vowels; it was found that the easy discrimination of minimal changes in order is not limited to speech sounds. A second experiment substituted 10 40-msec frozen noise segments for the vowels. The succession of noise segments formed a 400-msec frozen noise pattern that cannot be considered as a sequence of individual sounds, as can the succession of vowels or tones. Nevertheless, listeners again could discriminate between patterns differing only in the order of two adjacent 40-msec segments. These results, together with other evidence, indicate that it is not necessary for acoustic sequences of brief items (such as phonemes and tones) to be processed as perceptual sequences (that is, as a succession of discrete identifiable sounds) for different arrangements to be discriminated. Instead, component acoustic elements form distinctive "temporal compounds," which permit listeners to distinguish between different arrangements of portions of an acoustic pattern without the need for segmentation into an ordered series of component items.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Auditory pattern perception: The effect of tone location on the discrimination of tonal sequences

This study examined the effect of tonal location on the discrimination of sequences differing in the order of the tones and on their perceived grouping. The frequency range between the sequential tones was held constant. When all tones came from the same location, the sequence was rated as integrated, but when the higher frequency tones came from a different location than the lower frequency tones, the sequence was rated as segregated. Listeners discriminated the sequences in a 3IFC task. Discrimination performance was impaired when the sequence was split between two locations and tonal order was changed in only one location, even though the order of tones in different locations was changed. This result suggests that listeners have difficulty relating tones across locations or in different perceptual groups. Performance in this experiment is generally better than that observed by Barsz (1988), and it is suggested that the level of stimulus uncertainty explains this difference.

Frequency range size and the frequency range constraint in auditory perception by European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

We report data bearing on the ability of European starlings to generalize a serial auditory pitch pattern discrimination from one frequency range to another. In earlier research (e.g., Hulse & Cyrix, 1985), European starlings failed to generalize such a discrimination from one 1-octave range of frequencies to another 1-octave range above or below the initial training range. The starlings thus demonstrated a hitherto unknown phenomenon, thefrequency range constraint. In the present research, we first explored the frequency limits over which the range constraint might hold. The constraint was obtained after initial training in both a narrow (1÷2-octave) and a wide (3-octave) training range. The latter range encompasses a substantial portion of the entire frequency range audible to starlings. Therefore, the constraint is independent of the size of the training range. No known principles of stimulus discrimination or generalization account for the constraint. We also obtained further evidence on starlings’ sensitivity to relative pitch in auditory pattern perception. We used probe stimuli to explore pattern discrimination in narrow local regions of the wide frequency range. The probe data showed that, in spite of the frequency range constraint, the starlings were able to process pitch patterns on a relational basis. The results join earlier data indicating that both absolute and relative pitch processing may be involved in the natural auditory communication of songbirds.

Human Infants' Perception of Auditory Patterns

Humaninfants' perception of tone sequences or melodies is reviewed  the contextof related work with human adults and nonhuman species. For the  part,infants use an adult-like pitch processing strategy that is global and  ratherthan the local pitch strategy that is characteristic of the nonhuman species stud date. Thus they encode and retain the pitch configuration or contour of  withlittle attention to the absolute pitches of individual notes. In the case  structured melodies,specifically, melodies that are prototypical of Western music, in encodemore precise relations, notably the intervals or exact pitch relations be adjacentnotes. Finally, the functional significance of relational pitch  inhuman infancy is  consideredprocessingtweenfantsof wella melody,iedto relationalmostin

Auditory pattern perception: The effect of tonal frequency range on the perception of temporal order

Previous research in auditory sequence recognition based on the order of the components has suggested two conflicting hypotheses. This paper explores possible reasons for the conflict, and proposes a $hybrid% hypothesis consistent with the published data: The discrimination of sequences is better when permuted tones belong to a single perceived group, but the order of tones in different perceived groups is available. In the present study, subjects discriminated sequences forming two perceived groups, only one of which contained an order change, and sequences in three control conditions. Even though the experimental condition included order changes in one perceived group as well as among tones in different perceived groups, discrimination performance was significantly worse than in the control conditions, and fell to chance when all conditions were presented in random order. Performance improved significantly when the experimental condition was presented alone. This result supports the hybrid hypothesis, but several alternative explanations are discussed.

Multidimensional Scaling: History, Theory and Applications.

Contents: F.W. Young, Part I:History. Introduction. History. F.W. Young, Part II:Theory. Data Theory. Axiomatic Foundations. Unweighted Distance Models. Weighted Distance Models. Part III:Applications. J.A. Cameron, Nuclear Physics: Pattern Recognition in Nuclear Gamma-ray Spectra. L.M. Collins, Sociometry: Deriving Sociograms via Asymmetric Multidimensional Scaling. D.L. Hoffman, W.D. Perreault, Jr., Market Research: Consumer Preference and Perception. D.V. Easterling, Political Science: Using the Generalized Euclidian Model to Study Ideological Shifts in the U.S. Senate. M.R. Jones, R. MacCallum, Psychology: An Application of Principal Directions Scaling to Auditory Pattern Perception. B.H. Forsyth, Psychology: The Subjective Attributes of Natural Categories -- An Application of a Constrained Generalized Euclidian Model.

Organizational Processes in Infants' Perception of Auditory Patterns

Infants 9-11 months of age were tested for their discrimination of changes in the melodic contour (direction of successive pitch changes) of brief melodies in the context of discernible variations in key (different absolute frequencies, same intervals) or interval size (different absolute frequencies and frequency ratios, same contour). Infants detected contour changes in both variable contexts, suggesting that they categorize sequences of sounds on the basis of global, relational properties such as melodic contour. Implications of such processing strategies for infants' perception of running speech are considered.

Organizational Processes in Infants' Perception of Auditory Patterns

Organizational Processes in Infants' Perception of Auditory Patterns

Does rule recursion make melodies easier to reproduce? If not, what does?

Two experiments examined the effects of variations in melodic rule structure and rhythm upon the ability of musically sophisticated listeners to reproduce auditory patterns. These experiments were designed to evaluate different theoretical perspectives on auditory pattern perception and the role of rule structure in perceiving and remembering. Predictions of a coding model, which emphasizes the impact of rule recursion, were contrasted with those of an accent model, which emphasizes the relative timing of melodic and temporal accents. Effects of recursive (hierarchical) and nonrecursive (linear) rule arrangements were studied in contexts where pattern contour differences were controlled for. Rhythm was also varied. Measured pauses were inserted between certain tones to make a rhythm compatible or incompatible with melodic rule phrases. Experiment 1 showed that pattern simplicity was determined not by rule recursive codes, but by the number and timing of contour changes and melodic rule breaks. Experiment 2 examined additional effects of rhythm on listeners' response to rule recursion and melodic phrasing in melodies of equivalent contour. Although modest effects of rule recursion appeared, these effects were again outweighed by large performance differences due to the relative timing of changes in contour and melodic rule structure. Implications of the accent model for dynamic attending are discussed in the context of a new proposal involving temporal phasing of accents.

Infants' perception of multiple-group auditory patterns

Six- and 12-month-old infants were tested for their perception of a variety of features of multiple-group auditory patterns. Each pattern comprised nine pure tones organized as three groupings each of three elements. The features examined included: (1) features having to do with frequency composition, designated as “local” pattern features; and (2) features involving relations between pattern components, designated as “global” pattern features. Infants were tested with a Go/No-Go conditioned head-turn procedure. Twelve-month-olds readily performed all discriminations. By contrast, 6-month-olds had greater difficulty discriminating local than global pattern features and showed limitations in their ability to organize three distinct groupings of elements into a unified pattern. Results are discussed with reference to infants' perception of features of single-group patterns and the notion of developmental changes in auditory information-processing capacities.

Effect of peripheral and central auditory lesions on auditory pattern perception

Auditory patterns composed of three successive tone bursts of either 880(Low) or 1122(High) Hz were arranged to yield six types of patterns (i.e., LLH, LHL, HLL, HHL, HLH, LHH). The tones in the patterns had a 150‐ms duration, 10‐ms rise‐fall and 200 ms interstimulus interval. A normal performance criteria for these monaurally presented patterns was established on 31 normal subjects. Pattern data were then collected on groups of subjects with documented lesions of the cochlea, brain stem, or auditory areas of the cerebrum. Results indicated that almost 90% of subjects with cochlear lesions (N = 29) performed within the normal criteria, while over 80% of the 29 subjects with cerebral lesions yielded abnormal results. Approximately one half of the 22 subjects with brain stem involvement demonstrated normal performance on the pattern task. An additional analysis revealed that a high percentage of subjects with lesions limited to one hemisphere demonstrated bilateral ear deficits for pattern identification.

Infants' perception of complex auditory patterns

We previously observed that mental manipulation of the pitch level or temporal organization of melodies results in functional activation in the human intraparietal sulcus (IPS), a region also associated with visuospatial transformation and numerical calculation. Two outstanding questions about these musical transformations are whether pitch and time depend on separate or common processing in IPS, and whether IPS recruitment in melodic tasks varies depending upon the degree of transformation required (as it does in mental rotation). In the present study we sought to answer these questions by applying functional magnetic resonance imaging while musicians performed closely matched mental transposition (pitch transformation) and melody reversal (temporal transformation) tasks. A voxel-wise conjunction analysis showed that in individual subjects, both tasks activated overlapping regions in bilateral IPS, suggesting that a common neural substrate subserves both types of mental transformation. Varying the magnitude of mental pitch transposition resulted in variation of IPS BOLD signal in correlation with the musical key-distance of the transposition, but not with the pitch distance, indicating that the cognitive metric relevant for this type of operation is an abstract one, well described by music-theoretic concepts. These findings support a general role for the IPS in systematically transforming auditory stimulus representations in a nonspatial context.

Auditory temporal pattern perception in 6- and 12-month-old infants.

Auditory temporal pattern perception in 6- and 12-month-old infants.

Spatial mapping of two-dimensional sound patterns presented sequentially.

Man's spatial perception was investigated on the basis of acoustic input in the extrapersonal frame of reference. Sounds from a two-dimensional loudspeaker array outlined sequentially the contours of various digits. The underlying mechanisms involved in this auditory-spatial task were analyzed according to alterations in the vertical and horizontal spread of the patterns. The results demonstrated that two-dimensional sound patterns are identified mainly but not only on the basis of their horizontal spread. Differences between visual and auditory pattern perception are discussed in the context of supramodal spatial functions, and the present findings are linked to their neuropsychological application.