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Re: AUDITORY Digest - 10 May 2001 (#2001-88)
All,
It is certainly tempting to say that if Al B. is uncertain about "streams"
vs. "groups" the rest of us should avoid the issue. But that question did
cause me to reflect over the reason for the quick acceptance, some years ago
now, of the concept of "streams", which might have been argued to have been
unnecessary, given the rich vocabulary already established by Gestalt
psychologists. Perhaps it was already obvious to most of you...but it just
occurred to me that we did need a word to characterize grouping phenomena in
audition, where the temporal dimension dominates. The Gestalt vocabulary
had been developed primarily with static visual displays in mind, even
though its founders clearly believed that the grouping principles were valid
for all modalities. "Streams and streaming" nicely capture the temporal
dimension that is the essential property of most auditory grouping
phenomena.
Chuck Watson
-----Original Message-----
From: Automatic digest processor [mailto:LISTSERV@LISTS.MCGILL.CA]
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 11:00 PM
To: Recipients of AUDITORY digests
Subject: AUDITORY Digest - 10 May 2001 (#2001-88)
There are 12 messages totalling 447 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Perception of rise/fall times (2)
2. No evidence of notes in raw speech F0
3. AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research (2)
4. A note on notes (5)
5. inhibition in cortical vs. subcortical neurons
6. streams and groups
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 12:05:11 -0700
From: Pierre Divenyi <pdivenyi@MARVA4.NCSC.MED.VA.GOV>
Subject: Re: Perception of rise/fall times
One corollary observation (I owe it to my esteemed colleagues Eric Prame
and Bob Efron):
Slow (~1 to ~5 Hz) sinusoidal amplitude modulation produces one perceptual
event per cycle (coinciding with the peak or the onsetof the positive
ramp). Slow sinusoidal frequency modulation produces two.
Pierre
At 03:31 PM 5/10/01 -0400, Dennis P. Phillips, Ph.D. wrote:
>Hi Everyone:
>
>I'd like to thank all who responded to my recent question about asymmetries
>in the perceptual effects of rise and fall times. The responses were
>diverse, thoughtful, informative, and often pointed me to references which
>I had not previously found. This has been very helpful indeed. Again, many
>thanks.
>
>For folks who are interested, a "potted" summary would go something like
>this. Sounds with fast onsets and slow decays are judged as louder than
>their time-reversed analogs. Sinusoids with exponential onsets (ramped
>sinusoids) have a more tonal quality, and a less hollow, percussive one,
>than their time-reversed counterparts (damped sinusoids). Normal listeners
>are more sensitive to switching transients at the onset of a tone than to
>those at its offset. Thresholds for amplitude decrement detection are
>comparable to those for increment detection if the decrement is not too
>short in duration. Rise times (plucks and bows) are not perceived
>categorically. In general, these findings point to the perceptual
>importance of stimulus onsets (or increments). Below are a few of the
>references.
>
****************************************************************************
Pierre Divenyi, Ph.D. Speech and Hearing Research (151)
V.A. Medical Center, Martinez, CA
94553, USA
Phone: (925) 370-6745
Fax: (925) 228-5738
E-mail : pdivenyi@marva4.ebire.org
****************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 21:18:16 +0200
From: Alain de Cheveigne' <Alain.de.Cheveigne@IRCAM.FR>
Subject: Re: No evidence of notes in raw speech F0
Martin Braun wrote:
>At what points in a sentence did you extract f0 ?
At all points for which there was regular glottal vibration. By raw I mean
that no "speech target" selection process was involved.
I also tried doing statistics of maxima or minima of contiguous voiced
portions (which roughly correspond to "breath groups") as a rough but
plausible target selection process. No sign of a note-related structure in
the distribution of values.
Alain
--------------------------------------------------------------
Alain de Cheveigne'
CNRS/IRCAM, 1 place Stravinsky, 75004, Paris.
phone: +33 1 44784846, fax: 44781540, email: cheveign@ircam.fr
http://www.ircam.fr/equipes/pcm/cheveign
--------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 21:53:10 +0200
From: Alexandra Hettergott <a.hettergott@WANADOO.FR>
Subject: Re: AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research
Tom Brennan replied :
>If this requires vision, how do we teach the deafblind speech?
Vision *might* be useful in cases where feedback control via the
auditory system is entirely impossible (as in sign language /
dactylology) -- you won't yet assume that deaf-only persons wouldn't
make use of vision (only) since the deaf-blind aren't able to ...?
In the latter case, IMH(non-expert)O that if there are no other
(physical / mental) handicaps, there might be other possibilities to
(senso-motorically / cognitively) coordinate articulation / feedback
control (in addition to mere communication-by-touch).
:ah
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 15:20:01 -0500
From: Tom Brennan <g_brennantg@TITAN.SFASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research
My point exactly as working with deafblind is something that I do and the
statement had been made that the control was visual.
Tom
On Thu, 10 May 2001,
Alexandra Hettergott wrote:
> Tom Brennan replied :
> >If this requires vision, how do we teach the deafblind speech?
> Vision *might* be useful in cases where feedback control via the
> auditory system is entirely impossible (as in sign language /
> dactylology) -- you won't yet assume that deaf-only persons wouldn't
> make use of vision (only) since the deaf-blind aren't able to ...?
> In the latter case, IMH(non-expert)O that if there are no other
> (physical / mental) handicaps, there might be other possibilities to
> (senso-motorically / cognitively) coordinate articulation / feedback
> control (in addition to mere communication-by-touch).
> :ah
>
Tom Brennan, CCC-A/SLP, RHD
web page http://titan.sfasu.edu/~g_brennantg/sonicpage.html
web master http://titan.sfasu.edu/~f_freemanfj/speechscience.html
web master http://titan.sfasu.edu/~f_freemanfj/fluency.html
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 16:21:00 -0700
From: Bruno Repp <repp@ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: A note on notes
The following comment may strike some as pedantic, but I believe it
is good practice to keep scientific terminology in order. I would
like to suggest that, in scientific articles or exchanges on
music-related subjects, the word "note" not be used when referring to
sounds. Although this usage is common in everyday language (and
sometimes hard to avoid, I admit), the term "note" should refer only
to a printed symbol on paper. The audible consequence of playing a
note on an instrument is a tone. Notes have neither pitch nor
duration, only tones do. The term "note" in music is analogous to the
term "letter" in language, which also denotes a written symbol, not a
sound.
If anyone disagrees with this proposal, I'd be interested in the
counterarguments.
--Bruno
Bruno H. Repp
Research Scientist
Haskins Laboratories
270 Crown Street
New Haven, CT 06511-6695
Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236
FAX (203) 865-8963
e-mail: repp@haskins.yale.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 17:40:49 -0400
From: Chris Stecker <cstecker@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Perception of rise/fall times
Actually, sounds with _fast_ onsets and _slow_ decays are judged as _less
loud_ than their time-reversed analogs. The reverse is true of the inverse.
[Stecker & Hafter (2000) JASA 107:3358-3368]
-Chris
>At 03:31 PM 5/10/01 -0400, Dennis P. Phillips, Ph.D. wrote:
>>Hi Everyone:
>>
>>I'd like to thank all who responded to my recent question about
asymmetries
>>in the perceptual effects of rise and fall times. The responses were
>>diverse, thoughtful, informative, and often pointed me to references which
>>I had not previously found. This has been very helpful indeed. Again,
many
>>thanks.
>>
>>For folks who are interested, a "potted" summary would go something like
>>this. Sounds with fast onsets and slow decays are judged as louder than
>>their time-reversed analogs. Sinusoids with exponential onsets (ramped
>>sinusoids) have a more tonal quality, and a less hollow, percussive one,
>>than their time-reversed counterparts (damped sinusoids). Normal
listeners
>>are more sensitive to switching transients at the onset of a tone than to
>>those at its offset. Thresholds for amplitude decrement detection are
>>comparable to those for increment detection if the decrement is not too
>>short in duration. Rise times (plucks and bows) are not perceived
>>categorically. In general, these findings point to the perceptual
>>importance of stimulus onsets (or increments). Below are a few of the
>>references.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 22:53:14 +0100
From: John Croft <mfmxhjcc@STUD.MAN.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: A note on notes
on 11/5/01 0:21, Bruno Repp at repp@ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU wrote:
> I would
> like to suggest that, in scientific articles or exchanges on
> music-related subjects, the word "note" not be used when referring to
> sounds. Although this usage is common in everyday language (and
> sometimes hard to avoid, I admit), the term "note" should refer only
> to a printed symbol on paper. The audible consequence of playing a
> note on an instrument is a tone.
This is an Americanism -- possibly from deriving from the influence of the
German "ton" -- hence the use of "12-tone music" in the US and "12-note
music" in the UK. I agree that it would be helpful to distinguish the sound
from the printed symbol, but in British English the term "tone" refers to an
interval (equal to two semitones, American "whole-tone"), so this seems an
undesirable way to draw this distinction for speakers of British English.
John
_______________________________________
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/john.croft/
http://homepage.mac.com/castalia/
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 18:16:30 -0400
From: Mark Sanderson <Mark_Sanderson@BROWN.EDU>
Subject: inhibition in cortical vs. subcortical neurons
Dear List,
I was wondering if any experts out there could point me to references that
discuss the relative strength of inhibition (or suppression) in cortical
versus subcortical neurons. I'm interested in how inhibitory sidebands may
play a stronger role in creating a "band reject" region for cortical
neurons as compared to lower order auditory neurons.
The only comment I've found thus far was in Brosch and Schreiner (1997)
Time course of forward masking tuning curves in cat primary auditory
cortex. J Neurophys 77, p. 939.
Thanks,
Mark
Department of Neuroscience
Brown University
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 18:47:11 -0700
From: Bruno Repp <repp@ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: A note on notes
John Croft wrote:
This is an Americanism -- possibly from deriving from the influence of the
German "ton" -- hence the use of "12-tone music" in the US and "12-note
music" in the UK. I agree that it would be helpful to distinguish the sound
from the printed symbol, but in British English the term "tone" refers to an
interval (equal to two semitones, American "whole-tone"), so this seems an
undesirable way to draw this distinction for speakers of British English.
Answer:
Not so. The first meaning of "tone" listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary is "A musical or vocal sound, esp. with reference to its
pitch, quality, and strength". The interval meaning is listed only
under "4b". This additional meaning is no impediment whatsoever to
using "tone" with its primary meaning.
Andy Vermiglio wrote:
"The audible consequence of playing a note on an instrument is a tone."
Does this hold true for untuned percussion instruments?
Answer:
Perhaps I should have said "sound" for greater generality. My main
point was that "note" should not be used to refer to musical sounds.
--Bruno
Bruno H. Repp
Research Scientist
Haskins Laboratories
270 Crown Street
New Haven, CT 06511-6695
Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236
FAX (203) 865-8963
e-mail: repp@haskins.yale.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 08:53:14 +1000
From: Chris Chambers <chris.chambers@SCI.MONASH.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: A note on notes
> This is an Americanism -- possibly from deriving from the influence of the
> German "ton" -- hence the use of "12-tone music" in the US and "12-note
> music" in the UK. I agree that it would be helpful to distinguish the
sound
> from the printed symbol, but in British English the term "tone" refers to
an
> interval (equal to two semitones, American "whole-tone"), so this seems an
> undesirable way to draw this distinction for speakers of British English.
I just checked the oxford english dictionary, and one of the definitions
of tone is:
"A musical or vocal sound considered with reference to its quality, as
acute or grave, sweet or harsh, loud or soft, clear or dull."
which appears to refer not to an interval but to single sound. So it
looks as though it can refer to both intervals and single sounds in
British English.
Also, don't Americans also use the word 'tone' to refer to both an
interval and a single sound? (I have seen the words "semi-tone" and
"tone" etc. used to refer to intervals in American journals.)
So is it really an Americanism?
-Chris
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:02:24 +0100
From: John Croft <mfmxhjcc@STUD.MAN.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: A note on notes
on 11/5/01 2:47, Bruno Repp at repp@ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU wrote:
> Not so. The first meaning of "tone" listed in the Oxford English
> Dictionary is "A musical or vocal sound, esp. with reference to its
> pitch, quality, and strength".
Certainly -- I didn't mean to suggest that "tone" never means a single sound
in British English, or that it never means an interval in US English.
But while we have our dictionaries out, the OED also gives, under "note",
the meaning "a single tone of definite pitch made by a musical instrument,
the human voice, etc."
> Perhaps I should have said "sound" for greater generality. My main
> point was that "note" should not be used to refer to musical sounds.
And my point was simply that "tone" merely replaces one ambiguity with
another.
John
_______________________________________
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/john.croft/
http://homepage.mac.com/castalia/
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 22:31:54 -0400
From: Al Bregman <BREGMAN@PSYCH.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Re: streams and groups
Hi Tony and List,
I know what a stream is -- a time-varying sound or sequence of
sounds, treated by the auditory system as coming from a single
sound source. However, I don't know what is meant by a group.
Perhaps the context in which this term was found would be
informative. How was it used in the original source?
Best,
Al
-------------------------------------------------
Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
Dept of Psychology, McGill University
1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1
Office:
Phone: +1 (514) 398-6103
Fax: +1 (514) 398-4896
Home:
Phone & Fax: +1 (514) 484-2592
Email:
bregman@psych.mcgill.ca
-------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: A.Watkins <syswatkn@READING.AC.UK>
To: <AUDITORY@LISTS.MCGILL.CA>
Sent: 10-May-01 11:08 AM
Subject: streams and groups
> Can anyone help me answer this question from my undergraduate
student,
> or should the answer be more obvious to me than it is (which is
not
> very)?
>
> Hi Tony
>
> Just going through the grouping and segregation info and
getting a bit
> confused about what the difference is between a stream and a
group. Is
> there one?
>
> Tammy
>
> --
> Anthony J Watkins
> Psychology Department, The University of Reading, Reading, RG6
6AL, UK.
> phone: +44 (0)118-987-5123 ext. 7559; fax: +44 (0)118-931-6715
> home page: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~syswatkn/home.html
> email: syswatkn@reading.ac.uk
>
------------------------------
End of AUDITORY Digest - 10 May 2001 (#2001-88)
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