Re: The auditory continuity phenomenon: tones vs. glides (and other complex sounds)

[Bob Carlyon <Bob.Carlyon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Take a look at Ciocca & Bregman, Perecption & Psychophysics (1987)
p476-484 "Perceived continuity of gliding and steady-state tones through
interrupting noise"

A quick glance at their Fig 2 suggests that a glide, is, if anything,
judged a slightly less continuous thana steady tone, although they don't
say whether this is significant (note that in their figure small numbers=>
more continuity)

Perhaps if they had rewarded their subjects with bananas, the results
would have been different?

bob

>>
>> I have a question regarding the auditory continuity
>> phenomenon.
>>
>>
>>
>> The literature I have reviewed shows that listeners
>> perceive tones and
>> glides as maintaining continuity over breaks of up to 300
>> ms, if the gap is
>> 'filled' with louder noise ( e.g., Warren et al., 1972;
>> Dannenbring &
>> Bregman, 1976; Ciocca & Bregman, 1987; Nakajima & Sasaki,
>> 1996; Drake &
>> McAdams, 1999)
>>
>>
>>
>> It seems plausible to think that the continuity effect
>> for glides should be
>> stronger due to frequency trajectory cues or feedforward
>> effects. A pure
>> tone can not take advantage from those types of cues; it
>> has no movement and
>> its trajectory is redundant.
>>
>>
>>
>> Do you know any studies showing differences between
>> perceived continuity of
>> steady vs. glides?**
>>
>>
>>
>>  Thank you
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Elvira
>>
>
>>
>> please, add also this reference:
>> Vicario, G. (1960). L'effetto tunnel acustico. Rivista di
>> Psicologia,
>> 54, 41-52.
>>
>> m
>>
>> ********************
>> Massimo Grassi - PhD
>> Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale
>> Via Venezia 8 - 35131 Padova - Italy
>> http://www.psy.unipd.it/~grassi
>>
>
>
> Dear Elvira,
>
> I'm not sure that the human literature on continuity has
> quantified the tone vs. glide effect, but then again the
> behavioral literature is quite extensive so it may be we
> missed it.
>
> We noticed exactly what you describe with our behavioral
> study of macaques. We quantified their thresholds during
> continuity using a very challenging psychophysical task. We
> used the following stimuli: (1) tones, (2) FM glides, and
> (3) 'coo' vocalizations. The results showed continuity was
> stronger for the coo than the tone (but as a control
> masking was about the same, Fig. 4), and as you proposed we
> observed that thresholds were higher for the FM glide than
> the tone during continuity (again masking was about the
> same).
>
> The paper is:
>
> Petkov, O'Connor & Sutter. (2003) Illusory sound perception
> in macaque monkeys.  J Neuroscience. 23: 9155-9161.
>
> I have the paper on our website (but mainly for viewing, to
> be fair to the journal).
>
> Best wishes,
>
> -Chris Petkov
>
> Max-Planck Institute
> for Biological Cybernetics
> Tuebingen, Germany
> http://www.kyb.mpg.de/~chrisp
>


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