Re: [AUDITORY] Research in Auditory Processing

[Massimo Grassi <massimo.grassi@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,

An unsorted lists of information:

This seems a recurring discussion in the list. I remember a similar
discussion of 10 (15?, 20?) years ago. I vaguely remember that the
thread was called "why high is high" or something similar (I have no
time to check).

1. to John (and the others). In Italian "alto e basso" (high and low)
are used indifferently for pitch and loudness. Therefore, if you say
that a tone is "alto", people may interpret the sentence in different ways.

2. Although there are evidences out there about the pitch-vertical space
association there are also "missing associations". For example, in
preverbal infants results are mixed.
Walker, P., Bremner, J. G., Mason, U., Spring, J., Mattock, K., Slater,
A. and Johnson, S. P. (2010). Preverbal infants’ sensitivity to
synaesthetic cross-modality correspondences, Psychol. Sci. 21, 21–25.
Lewkowicz, D. J. and Minar, N. J. (2014). Infants are not sensitive to
synesthetic cross-modality correspondences. A comment to Walker et al.
(2010), Psychol. Sci. 25, 832–834.

3. There is also the SMARC effect (we respond faster to a high pitch
tone with a high-placed response key and viceversa, Rusconi et al.,
2006) but it seems that the effect is liked to the coherent change in
pitch and brightness of the tone (Pitteri et al).
Pitteri, M., Marchetti, M., Priftis, K., & Grassi, M. (2017). Naturally
together: Pitch-height and brightness as coupled factors for eliciting
the SMARC effect in non-musicians. Psychological Research, 81, 243–254.
doi: 10.1007/s00426-015-0713-6
Rusconi, E., Kwan, B., Giordano, B. L., Umiltà, C., & Butterworth, B.
(2006). Spatial representation of pitch height: The SMARC effect.
Cognition, 99, 113–129. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.004

It seems to me that the association pitch-zenith (if exists) is weak and
can be modulated by several factors. I suspect also there is a bit of
publication bias in this topic.

Here in northern Italy spring is beginning. I hope it is beginning also
where you read this email :-)

Regards,
m

> Dear all,
>
> Sorry for being a bit late in this discussion. But, I wanted to share my thoughts:
>
> In studies such as (Cabrera & Tilley, 2003; Pratt, 1930; Roffler & Butler, 1968a, 1968b), subjects were asked to indicate their opinions by choosing from a single scale presented in front of them. This setup could predispose them into associating any changes in the stimuli with changes in the provided vertical scale.
>
> I found in [1,2] that listeners associate Risset tones more often to sources moving in the horizontal plane than the vertical one. Upward glissandi is more often associated with approaching sources and downward glissandi to receding. It seems that at least for Risset tones, Doppler Illusion is stronger than the Pratt effect.
>
> These are the references:
>
> Cabrera, D., & Tilley, S. (2003). Vertical localization and image size effects in loudspeaker reproduc- tion. In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Audio Engineering Society. Audio Engineering Society
>
> Pratt, C. C. (1930). The spatial character of high and low tones. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 13, 278–285.
>
> Roffler, S. K., & Butler, R. A. (1968a). Factors that influence the localization of sound in the vertical plane. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 43, 1255–1259.
>
> Roffler, S. K., & Butler, R. A. (1968b). Localization of tonal stimuli in the vertical plane. Journal of
> Acoustical Society of America, 43, 1260–1266.
>
> [1] J. Villegas, “Association of frequency changes with perceived horizontal and vertical movement,” Acoust. Sci. & Tech., Oct. 2018. (submitted).
>
> [2] J. Villegas and N. Fukasawa, “Doppler illusion prevails over Pratt effect in Risset tones,” Perception, vol. 47, no. 12, pp. 1179–1195, 2018. DOI: 10.1177/0301006618807338.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Julian.