Opposing serial effects of stimulus and choice in speech perception scale with context variability

Area of Science:

• Auditory Perception
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychophysics

Background:

• Serial dependence, a phenomenon where perception is influenced by preceding stimuli, is well-documented in visual domains.
• Recent research suggests distinct repulsive and attractive components underlie visual serial dependence.
• The presence and nature of such effects in auditory perception remain less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate serial effects on auditory vowel perception.
• To determine if auditory perception exhibits both repulsive and attractive serial dependence.
• To examine the influence of context variability on these auditory serial effects.

Main Methods:

• Three experimental setups with varying context variability were employed.
• Participants perceived auditory vowel stimuli.
• Behavioral data were analyzed to identify perceptual and decisional effects.

Main Results:

• Confirmed the existence of both repulsive sensory and attractive decisional effects in auditory perception.
• Demonstrated parallel serial effects in audition, mirroring findings in visual perception.
• Revealed context variability influences: a linear pattern for repulsive effects and a quadratic pattern for attractive effects.

Conclusions:

• Auditory perception exhibits distinct attractive and repulsive serial effects, analogous to visual perception.
• Repulsive effects are likely driven by adaptive sensory mechanisms.
• Attractive effects are governed by higher-level decisional mechanisms, modulated by context variability.