Re: clarification on a comment I made (Al Bregman )

Subject: Re: clarification on a comment I made
From:    Al Bregman  <bregman(at)HEBB.PSYCH.MCGILL.CA>
Date:    Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:16:26 -0400

Dear Jont,

The inability of a listener to judge the exact position of a sudden
interrupting sound relative to an ongoing stream has been known for some
time.  It was used in the field of psycholinguistics to demonstrate
something about the processing of grammatical structures.

Reference:
Fodor, J.A., & Bever, T.G. (1965). The psychological reality of
    linguistic segments. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
    Behavior, 4, 414-420.
The perceived positions of electronic clicks superimposed on
in sentences are found to migrate to clause boundaries in the
judgments of the subject.

The phenomenon is also discussed in Bregman, A.S. (1990) Auditory Scene
Analysis, on p.544, and other references are also given there. It is seen
as an example of the loss of between-stream temporal relations when
streams become segregated.

Cheers,
Al

--------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 30 May 1997, Jont Allen wrote:

> I have gotten several comments on a statement I made, and I would like
> to clarify my statement.
...
> What I had in mind, and I didnt make it clear, was two signals to
> the same ear, that form independent streams. One person sent me
> email (Kevin Austin) with an excellent example, of a scratch in
> a record. He said, and I agree, that in such a situation it is
> very hard to pin down exactly where the scratch is relative to the
> musical score of music playing in the background.
>
> Even it this point doesn't stand up to exerimental scrutiny, I wanted to
> clarify at least what I had in mind.
>
> Hope this helps soften the breeze,
>
> Jont
>