continuity and grouping

[Chris Darwin <c.j.darwin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One more jot to the continuity/grouping series:

Here is the abstract to a paper that is in press in Perception & 
Psychophysics

Simultaneous grouping and auditory continuity
C J Darwin

Are the conditions for illusory auditory continuity entirely local in 
frequency, or are judgments of continuity made on auditory objects? 
Listeners made continuous / pulsating judgments on a variety of complex 
tones that repeatedly alternated with a 100-500-Hz bandpass noise.  A 
sufficiently quiet complex tone was heard as continuous when all its 
harmonics fell within the frequency range of the noise.  Adding harmonics 
outside the noise's frequency range substantially reduced the impression of 
continuity, which was largely restored when these additional components 
were given a different fundamental frequency.  Judgments of auditory 
continuity thus appear to be based on entire simultaneously-grouped objects 
rather than being solely determined by local criteria based on individual 
frequency-channels.

Happy to send a pdf preprint to anyone requesting it.

Chris Darwin

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Professor Chris Darwin, Department of Psychology,
University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
Phone: +44-1273-678409;  FAX: +44-1273-678058
Email: cjd@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Home Page: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/Home/Chris_Darwin/
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