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Related Experiment Video

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Mapping Cortical Dynamics Using Simultaneous MEG/EEG and Anatomically-constrained Minimum-norm Estimates: an Auditory Attention Example

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Feature assignment in perception of auditory figure.

Melissa K Gregg¹, Arthur G Samuel²

¹Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance

|February 1, 2012

Summary

Listeners can separate sounds by distinguishing between auditory objects and auditory streams. Auditory object perception is sensitive to noise, while auditory streams are more robust, influencing how we parse complex sound environments.

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Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

Area of Science:

Auditory Perception
Psychoacoustics
Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

The auditory environment contains overlapping sounds requiring listeners to segregate target sounds (auditory figures) from background noise (auditory ground).
Distinguishing between auditory 'objects' (brief events) and auditory 'streams' (patterns over time) is crucial for auditory scene analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the principles governing the extraction of auditory figures from complex auditory scenes.
To clarify the perceptual differences and grouping principles between auditory objects and auditory streams.

Main Methods:

Experiments 1 and 2 presented listeners with an auditory object and an auditory stream, plus a target feature to be grouped with either source.
Listeners attended to one sound source and reported its perceived category under various experimental manipulations.
Experiment 3 increased the number of competing sound sources to three, altering reliance on spatial cues versus feature-based grouping.

Main Results:

Listeners preferentially grouped features with impoverished objects when it resulted in a well-defined object.
Auditory object perception was sensitive to feature variation (e.g., noise masking), whereas stream perception was more robust.
With increased competing sources, listeners shifted reliance from feature contribution to spatial cues for grouping.

Conclusions:

The study supports a clear distinction between auditory objects and auditory streams based on perceptual characteristics and grouping principles.
Findings provide novel insights into how the human auditory system parses complex sound environments, highlighting the interplay between feature-based and spatial cueing.