Perceptual Organization Of Sound Research Articles

Retroactive Streaming Fails to Improve Concurrent Vowel Identification.

The sequential organization of sound over time can interact with the concurrent organization of sounds across frequency. Previous studies using simple acoustic stimuli have suggested that sequential streaming cues can retroactively affect the perceptual organization of sounds that have already occurred. It is unknown whether such effects generalize to the perception of speech sounds. Listeners’ ability to identify two simultaneously presented vowels was measured in the following conditions: no context, a preceding context stream (precursors), and a following context stream (postcursors). The context stream was comprised of brief repetitions of one of the two vowels, and the primary measure of performance was listeners’ ability to identify the other vowel. Results in the precursor condition showed a significant advantage for the identification of the second vowel compared to the no-context condition, suggesting that sequential grouping mechanisms aided the segregation of the concurrent vowels, in agreement with previous work. However, performance in the postcursor condition was significantly worse compared to the no-context condition, providing no evidence for an effect of stream segregation, and suggesting a possible interference effect. Two additional experiments involving inharmonic (jittered) vowels were performed to provide additional cues to aid retroactive stream segregation; however, neither manipulation enabled listeners to improve their identification of the target vowel. Taken together with earlier studies, the results suggest that retroactive streaming may require large spectral differences between concurrent sources and thus may not provide a robust segregation cue for natural broadband sounds such as speech.

Auditory Scene Analysis

Albert Bregman’s (1990) book Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound has had a tremendous impact on research in auditory neuroscience. Here, we outline some of the accomplishments. This review is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather aims to highlight milestones in the brief history of auditory neuroscience. The steady increase in neuroscience research following the book’s pivotal publication has advanced knowledge about how the brain forms representations of auditory objects. This research has far-reaching societal implications on health and quality of life. For instance, it helped us understand why some people experience difficulties understanding speech in noise, which in turn has led to development of therapeutic interventions. Importantly, the book acts as a catalyst, providing scientists with a common conceptual framework for research in such diverse fields as speech perception, music perception, neurophysiology and computational neuroscience. This interdisciplinary approach to research in audition is one of this book’s legacies.

Cortical representations sensitive to the number of perceived auditory objects emerge between 2 and 4 months of age: electrophysiological evidence.

Sound waves emitted by two or more simultaneous sources reach the ear as one complex waveform. Auditory scene analysis involves parsing a complex waveform into separate perceptual representations of the sound sources [Bregman, A. S. Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sounds. London: MIT Press, 1990]. Harmonicity provides an important cue for auditory scene analysis. Normally, harmonics at integer multiples of a fundamental frequency are perceived as one sound with a pitch corresponding to the fundamental frequency. However, when one harmonic in such a complex, pitch-evoking sound is sufficiently mistuned, that harmonic emerges from the complex tone and is perceived as a separate auditory object. Previous work has shown that the percept of two objects is indexed in both children and adults by the object-related negativity component of the ERP derived from EEG recordings [Alain, C., Arnott, S. T., & Picton, T. W. Bottom-up and top-down influences on auditory scene analysis: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 1072-1089, 2001]. Here we examine the emergence of object-related responses to an 8% harmonic mistuning in infants between 2 and 12 months of age. Two-month-old infants showed no significant object-related response. However, in 4- to 12-month-old infants, a significant frontally positive component was present, and by 8-12 months, a significant frontocentral object-related negativity was present, similar to that seen in older children and adults. This is in accordance with previous research demonstrating that infants younger than 4 months of age do not integrate harmonic information to perceive pitch when the fundamental is missing [He, C., Hotson, L., & Trainor, L. J. Maturation of cortical mismatch mismatch responses to occasional pitch change in early infancy: Effects of presentation rate and magnitude of change. Neuropsychologia, 47, 218-229, 2009]. The results indicate that the ability to use harmonic information to segregate simultaneous sounds emerges at the cortical level between 2 and 4 months of age.

Do audio-visual motion cues promote segregation of auditory streams?

An audio-visual experiment using moving sound sources was designed to investigate whether the analysis of auditory scenes is modulated by synchronous presentation of visual information. Listeners were presented with an alternating sequence of two pure tones delivered by two separate sound sources. In different conditions, the two sound sources were either stationary or moving on random trajectories around the listener. Both the sounds and the movement trajectories were derived from recordings in which two humans were moving with loudspeakers attached to their heads. Visualized movement trajectories modeled by a computer animation were presented together with the sounds. In the main experiment, behavioral reports on sound organization were collected from young healthy volunteers. The proportion and stability of the different sound organizations were compared between the conditions in which the visualized trajectories matched the movement of the sound sources and when the two were independent of each other. The results corroborate earlier findings that separation of sound sources in space promotes segregation. However, no additional effect of auditory movement per se on the perceptual organization of sounds was obtained. Surprisingly, the presentation of movement-congruent visual cues did not strengthen the effects of spatial separation on segregating auditory streams. Our findings are consistent with the view that bistability in the auditory modality can occur independently from other modalities.

The cross- modal effect of perceptual organization of sounds on the visual target detection

The cross- modal effect of perceptual organization of sounds on the visual target detection

Integration and segregation in auditory streaming

We aim to capture the perceptual dynamics of auditory streaming using a neurally inspired model of auditory processing. Traditional approaches view streaming as a competition of streams, realized within a tonotopically organized neural network. In contrast, we view streaming to be a dynamic integration process which resides at locations other than the sensory specific neural subsystems. This process finds its realization in the synchronization of neural ensembles or in the existence of informational convergence zones. Our approach uses two interacting dynamical systems, in which the first system responds to incoming acoustic stimuli and transforms them into a spatiotemporal neural field dynamics. The second system is a classification system coupled to the neural field and evolves to a stationary state. These states are identified with a single perceptual stream or multiple streams. Several results in human perception are modelled including temporal coherence and fission boundaries [L.P.A.S. van Noorden, Temporal coherence in the perception of tone sequences, Ph.D. Thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, 1975], and crossing of motions [A.S. Bregman, Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound, MIT Press, 1990]. Our model predicts phenomena such as the existence of two streams with the same pitch, which cannot be explained by the traditional stream competition models. An experimental study is performed to provide proof of existence of this phenomenon. The model elucidates possible mechanisms that may underlie perceptual phenomena.

Multiple bursts, multiple looks, and stream coherence in the release from informational masking.

In the simultaneous multitone masking paradigm introduced by Neff and Green [Percept. Psychophys. 41, 409-415 (1987)] the masker typically is a small number of tones having frequencies and levels that are randomly drawn on every presentation. Large amounts of masking for a pure-tone signal often occur that are thought to reflect central, rather than peripheral, limitations on processing. Previous work from this laboratory has indicated that playing a rapid succession of randomly drawn multitone maskers in each observation interval dramatically reduces the amount of masking that is observed relative to a single burst (SB). In this multiple-bursts-different (MBD) procedure, the signal tone is the only constant frequency component during the sequence of bursts and tends to perceptually segregate from the masker. In this study, the number of masker bursts and the interburst interval (IBI) were varied. The goals were to determine how the release from masking relative to the SB condition depends on the number of bursts and to examine whether increasing the IBI would cause each burst to be processed independently. If the latter were true, it might disrupt the perception of signal stream coherence, thereby diminishing the MBD advantage. However, multiple independent looks could also lead to an improvement in performance. For those subjects showing large amounts of informational masking in the SB condition, substantial reduction in masked thresholds occurred as the number of masker bursts increased, while masking increased as IBI lengthened. The results were not consistent with a simple version of a multiple-look model in which the information from each burst was combined optimally, but instead appear to be attributable to mechanisms involved in the perceptual organization of sounds.

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

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Book reviews

British Journal of PsychologyVolume 83, Issue 2 p. 279-298 Book reviews First published: May 1992 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02441.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: Mind in Action. By J. Coulter. Eastern and Western Approaches to Healing: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Knowledge. By A. A. Sheikh & K. S. Sheikh. The Roots of Evil. By E. Staub. The Imitation of Nature. By J. Hyman. The Biopsychology of Mood and Arousal. By Robert E. Thayer. Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion. By Mary Boyle. Battle Exhaustion: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Canadian Army, 1939–1945. By Terry Copp & Bill McAndrew. Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention. Edited by S. J. Meisels & J. P. Shonkoff. The Origins of Exceptional Abilities. By M. J. A. Howe. Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading. Edited by A. Whiten. Social Representations and the Development of Knowledge. By G. Duveen & B. Lloyd. Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound. By A. S. Bregman. Neurocomputing. By Robert Hecht-Nielsen. Males with Eating Disorders. Edited by Arnold E. Andersen. Key Studies in Psychology. By Richard D. Gross. Psychology in Prisons. By D. J. Cooke, P. J. Baldwin & J. Howison. Clinical Hypnosis and Therapeutic Suggestion in Patient Care. Edited by Rothlyn P. Zahourek. Brain Circuits and the Functions of the Mind: Essays in Honor of Roger W. Sperry. Edited by C. Trevarthen. Citing Literature Volume83, Issue2May 1992Pages 279-298 RelatedInformation

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

Book Review: Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

Book Review: Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound