Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 10, 2025

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Perceptual organization and stability of auditory streaming for pure tones and /ba/ stimuli
Samantha J Gustafson1, John Grose2, Emily Buss2
1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Utah, 390 South 1530 East, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Abstract:
The dynamics of auditory stream segregation were evaluated using repeating triplets composed of pure tones or the syllable /ba/. Stimuli differed in frequency (tones) or fundamental frequency (speech) by 4, 6, 8, or 10 semitones, and the standard frequency was either 250 Hz (tones and speech) or 400 Hz (tones). Twenty normal-hearing adults participated. For both tones and speech, a two-stream percept became more likely as frequency separation increased. Perceptual organization for speech tended to be more integrated and less stable compared to tones. Results suggest that prior data patterns observed with tones in this paradigm may generalize to speech stimuli.
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