Dear colleagues and auditory experts,
I am reaching out to the auditory community to evaluate existing methods / experimental tricks to equate the loudness of sounds as a function of their duration.
Context: in the timing literature, one wants to ensure that participants use timing and not any other (intensity, loudness, spectral, pitch...) cue to estimate the duration of a stimulus. For this, one conservative approach is to use an "empty interval", namely a gap in noise for very short timing, or two transient sounds delimiting silence (aka a time interval). Alternatively, a "filled duration" (pure tone, noise, etc...) can be used, risking the use of alternative cues. To use a filled duration, one must ensure that the loudness of the sound is equal across durations.
My question to you is:
What is the best and fastest way (from the viewpoint of experimental implementation) to equalize loudness across auditory stimuli? The range of durations is from 100 ms to 3 s. For other experimental reasons, we'd prefer a pure tone (440 Hz) over noise.
I'd welcome your tips, insights or pointers to papers you may have.
If anyone has a reprint of this one, that would also be great:
With best wishes,
Virginie
Dir. Cognition & Brain Dynamics
CEA/DRF/Joliot/NeuroSpin | INSERM Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit | Univ. Paris-Saclay
My working hours may not be the same as yours, please respond on your own time!