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Listeners' expectations about echoes can raise or lower echo threshold

R K Clifton¹, R L Freyman, R Y Litovsky

¹Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

|March 1, 1994

Summary

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Listeners can better detect echoes when the timing of sound changes, mimicking shifts in room acoustics. Unexpected changes in sound delay, not frequency or intensity, improve echo perception.

Area of Science:

Acoustics
Psychoacoustics
Auditory Perception

Background:

The echo threshold, the minimum echo level detectable, increases with exposure to repetitive sounds.
Changes in ongoing auditory stimuli can influence the perception of subsequent sounds, like echoes.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if changes in an ongoing auditory stimulus train affect echo perception.
To determine if such effects are contingent on the change signifying altered room acoustics.

Main Methods:

Simulated auditory echoes using narrow-band noise bursts in an anechoic chamber.
Manipulated the delay, frequency, and intensity of the simulated echo relative to the leading sound.
Listeners identified the perceived direction of the simulated echo.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

Varying the delay between leading and lagging bursts (simulating movement of a sound source or reflector) significantly improved echo direction detection.
Changes in frequency or intensity of the simulated echo did not enhance echo detectability.
Listeners performed better when the echo delay changed compared to when it remained constant.

Conclusions:

Echo perception is enhanced when the auditory stimulus change signals a dynamic acoustic environment (e.g., changing distance).
Simple changes in sound delay are more effective in improving echo detection than changes in frequency or intensity.
Listener's ability to discern echo direction is modulated by changes that mimic realistic acoustic variations.