Re: 'Persistence of hearing'

[John Neuhoff <jneuhoff@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Of course, these two perspectives (Hartmann v. Jesteadt) need not be
mutually exclusive.  That is to say, there could be a general tendency (as
observed by Fechner) as well as a specific auditory process that serves to
focus attention in a particular spectral region or timbre space. In the
latter case, focused auditory attention to a particular acoustic
characteristic that has been recently presented is probably quite
utilitarian in tasks such as perceiving speech in noisy environments, etc.

-John Neuhoff

________________________________
John G. Neuhoff
Department of Psychology
The College of Wooster
Wooster, OH 44691
Phone: 330-263-2475

http://jneuhoff.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jesteadt, Walt" <jesteadt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: 'Persistence of hearing'

I do not agree.  I think it is a more general tendency, as observed by
Fechner in the method of limits.  I doubt if it has anything to do with
perception at all.

Walt

-----Original Message-----
From: AUDITORY Research in Auditory Perception
[mailto:AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of William Hartmann
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 8:33 AM
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: 'Persistance of hearing'


CN,

Agreed. There is a tendency for listeners to maintain a selective
attention to fixed frequency regions. We discovered a similar kind of
hysteresis in experiments varying the phase of a sine tone at onset. As
the onset noise moved from low to high frequencies listeners seemed to
maintain a focus on the thump until the click became too loud to ignore,
and vice versa. The work is reviewed starting on page 305 of Signals,
Sound, and Sensation.

wmh

Craig Nicol wrote:

> I've been looking at Timbre Spaces for a while, in particular the
> spaces by Grey in the 1970s. In one of his papers he mentions an
> experiment where two sounds are chosen (let's call them A and B), and
> a set of sounds is generated morphing from A to B. What he discovered
> is that there is a hysteresis effect when listening to the morphing,
> i.e. If the sounds are played from A to B, the listener will report
> hearing A for over half the samples whereas if the sounds are played
> from B to A, the listener will report hearing B for more samples.
>
> I am vaguely aware of similar optical illusions such as persistence of
> vision and I was wondering if anyone could direct me to more
> information on this effect in hearing as I want to know if this effect
> is particular to the timbre space or is a product of human perception.
>
> Regards,
> Craig Nicol.