Subject: Re: AUDITORY Digest - 10 May 2001 (#2001-88) From: "Watson, Charles S" <watson(at)INDIANA.EDU> Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 14:34:24 -0500All, It is certainly tempting to say that if Al B. is uncertain about "streams" vs. "groups" the rest of us should avoid the issue. But that question did cause me to reflect over the reason for the quick acceptance, some years ago now, of the concept of "streams", which might have been argued to have been unnecessary, given the rich vocabulary already established by Gestalt psychologists. Perhaps it was already obvious to most of you...but it just occurred to me that we did need a word to characterize grouping phenomena in audition, where the temporal dimension dominates. The Gestalt vocabulary had been developed primarily with static visual displays in mind, even though its founders clearly believed that the grouping principles were valid for all modalities. "Streams and streaming" nicely capture the temporal dimension that is the essential property of most auditory grouping phenomena. Chuck Watson -----Original Message----- From: Automatic digest processor [mailto:LISTSERV(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 11:00 PM To: Recipients of AUDITORY digests Subject: AUDITORY Digest - 10 May 2001 (#2001-88) There are 12 messages totalling 447 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Perception of rise/fall times (2) 2. No evidence of notes in raw speech F0 3. AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research (2) 4. A note on notes (5) 5. inhibition in cortical vs. subcortical neurons 6. streams and groups ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 12:05:11 -0700 From: Pierre Divenyi <pdivenyi(at)MARVA4.NCSC.MED.VA.GOV> Subject: Re: Perception of rise/fall times One corollary observation (I owe it to my esteemed colleagues Eric Prame and Bob Efron): Slow (~1 to ~5 Hz) sinusoidal amplitude modulation produces one perceptual event per cycle (coinciding with the peak or the onsetof the positive ramp). Slow sinusoidal frequency modulation produces two. Pierre At 03:31 PM 5/10/01 -0400, Dennis P. Phillips, Ph.D. wrote: >Hi Everyone: > >I'd like to thank all who responded to my recent question about asymmetries >in the perceptual effects of rise and fall times. The responses were >diverse, thoughtful, informative, and often pointed me to references which >I had not previously found. This has been very helpful indeed. Again, many >thanks. > >For folks who are interested, a "potted" summary would go something like >this. Sounds with fast onsets and slow decays are judged as louder than >their time-reversed analogs. Sinusoids with exponential onsets (ramped >sinusoids) have a more tonal quality, and a less hollow, percussive one, >than their time-reversed counterparts (damped sinusoids). Normal listeners >are more sensitive to switching transients at the onset of a tone than to >those at its offset. Thresholds for amplitude decrement detection are >comparable to those for increment detection if the decrement is not too >short in duration. Rise times (plucks and bows) are not perceived >categorically. In general, these findings point to the perceptual >importance of stimulus onsets (or increments). Below are a few of the >references. > **************************************************************************** Pierre Divenyi, Ph.D. Speech and Hearing Research (151) V.A. Medical Center, Martinez, CA 94553, USA Phone: (925) 370-6745 Fax: (925) 228-5738 E-mail : pdivenyi(at)marva4.ebire.org **************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 21:18:16 +0200 From: Alain de Cheveigne' <Alain.de.Cheveigne(at)IRCAM.FR> Subject: Re: No evidence of notes in raw speech F0 Martin Braun wrote: >At what points in a sentence did you extract f0 ? At all points for which there was regular glottal vibration. By raw I mean that no "speech target" selection process was involved. I also tried doing statistics of maxima or minima of contiguous voiced portions (which roughly correspond to "breath groups") as a rough but plausible target selection process. No sign of a note-related structure in the distribution of values. Alain -------------------------------------------------------------- Alain de Cheveigne' CNRS/IRCAM, 1 place Stravinsky, 75004, Paris. phone: +33 1 44784846, fax: 44781540, email: cheveign(at)ircam.fr http://www.ircam.fr/equipes/pcm/cheveign -------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 21:53:10 +0200 From: Alexandra Hettergott <a.hettergott(at)WANADOO.FR> Subject: Re: AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research Tom Brennan replied : >If this requires vision, how do we teach the deafblind speech? Vision *might* be useful in cases where feedback control via the auditory system is entirely impossible (as in sign language / dactylology) -- you won't yet assume that deaf-only persons wouldn't make use of vision (only) since the deaf-blind aren't able to ...? In the latter case, IMH(non-expert)O that if there are no other (physical / mental) handicaps, there might be other possibilities to (senso-motorically / cognitively) coordinate articulation / feedback control (in addition to mere communication-by-touch). :ah ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 15:20:01 -0500 From: Tom Brennan <g_brennantg(at)TITAN.SFASU.EDU> Subject: Re: AP in all of us? New evidence from speech research My point exactly as working with deafblind is something that I do and the statement had been made that the control was visual. Tom On Thu, 10 May 2001, Alexandra Hettergott wrote: > Tom Brennan replied : > >If this requires vision, how do we teach the deafblind speech? > Vision *might* be useful in cases where feedback control via the > auditory system is entirely impossible (as in sign language / > dactylology) -- you won't yet assume that deaf-only persons wouldn't > make use of vision (only) since the deaf-blind aren't able to ...? > In the latter case, IMH(non-expert)O that if there are no other > (physical / mental) handicaps, there might be other possibilities to > (senso-motorically / cognitively) coordinate articulation / feedback > control (in addition to mere communication-by-touch). > :ah > Tom Brennan, CCC-A/SLP, RHD web page http://titan.sfasu.edu/~g_brennantg/sonicpage.html web master http://titan.sfasu.edu/~f_freemanfj/speechscience.html web master http://titan.sfasu.edu/~f_freemanfj/fluency.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 16:21:00 -0700 From: Bruno Repp <repp(at)ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU> Subject: A note on notes The following comment may strike some as pedantic, but I believe it is good practice to keep scientific terminology in order. I would like to suggest that, in scientific articles or exchanges on music-related subjects, the word "note" not be used when referring to sounds. Although this usage is common in everyday language (and sometimes hard to avoid, I admit), the term "note" should refer only to a printed symbol on paper. The audible consequence of playing a note on an instrument is a tone. Notes have neither pitch nor duration, only tones do. The term "note" in music is analogous to the term "letter" in language, which also denotes a written symbol, not a sound. If anyone disagrees with this proposal, I'd be interested in the counterarguments. --Bruno Bruno H. Repp Research Scientist Haskins Laboratories 270 Crown Street New Haven, CT 06511-6695 Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236 FAX (203) 865-8963 e-mail: repp(at)haskins.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 17:40:49 -0400 From: Chris Stecker <cstecker(at)COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU> Subject: Re: Perception of rise/fall times Actually, sounds with _fast_ onsets and _slow_ decays are judged as _less loud_ than their time-reversed analogs. The reverse is true of the inverse. [Stecker & Hafter (2000) JASA 107:3358-3368] -Chris >At 03:31 PM 5/10/01 -0400, Dennis P. Phillips, Ph.D. wrote: >>Hi Everyone: >> >>I'd like to thank all who responded to my recent question about asymmetries >>in the perceptual effects of rise and fall times. The responses were >>diverse, thoughtful, informative, and often pointed me to references which >>I had not previously found. This has been very helpful indeed. Again, many >>thanks. >> >>For folks who are interested, a "potted" summary would go something like >>this. Sounds with fast onsets and slow decays are judged as louder than >>their time-reversed analogs. Sinusoids with exponential onsets (ramped >>sinusoids) have a more tonal quality, and a less hollow, percussive one, >>than their time-reversed counterparts (damped sinusoids). Normal listeners >>are more sensitive to switching transients at the onset of a tone than to >>those at its offset. Thresholds for amplitude decrement detection are >>comparable to those for increment detection if the decrement is not too >>short in duration. Rise times (plucks and bows) are not perceived >>categorically. In general, these findings point to the perceptual >>importance of stimulus onsets (or increments). Below are a few of the >>references. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 22:53:14 +0100 From: John Croft <mfmxhjcc(at)STUD.MAN.AC.UK> Subject: Re: A note on notes on 11/5/01 0:21, Bruno Repp at repp(at)ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU wrote: > I would > like to suggest that, in scientific articles or exchanges on > music-related subjects, the word "note" not be used when referring to > sounds. Although this usage is common in everyday language (and > sometimes hard to avoid, I admit), the term "note" should refer only > to a printed symbol on paper. The audible consequence of playing a > note on an instrument is a tone. This is an Americanism -- possibly from deriving from the influence of the German "ton" -- hence the use of "12-tone music" in the US and "12-note music" in the UK. I agree that it would be helpful to distinguish the sound from the printed symbol, but in British English the term "tone" refers to an interval (equal to two semitones, American "whole-tone"), so this seems an undesirable way to draw this distinction for speakers of British English. John _______________________________________ http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/john.croft/ http://homepage.mac.com/castalia/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 18:16:30 -0400 From: Mark Sanderson <Mark_Sanderson(at)BROWN.EDU> Subject: inhibition in cortical vs. subcortical neurons Dear List, I was wondering if any experts out there could point me to references that discuss the relative strength of inhibition (or suppression) in cortical versus subcortical neurons. I'm interested in how inhibitory sidebands may play a stronger role in creating a "band reject" region for cortical neurons as compared to lower order auditory neurons. The only comment I've found thus far was in Brosch and Schreiner (1997) Time course of forward masking tuning curves in cat primary auditory cortex. J Neurophys 77, p. 939. Thanks, Mark Department of Neuroscience Brown University ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 18:47:11 -0700 From: Bruno Repp <repp(at)ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU> Subject: Re: A note on notes John Croft wrote: This is an Americanism -- possibly from deriving from the influence of the German "ton" -- hence the use of "12-tone music" in the US and "12-note music" in the UK. I agree that it would be helpful to distinguish the sound from the printed symbol, but in British English the term "tone" refers to an interval (equal to two semitones, American "whole-tone"), so this seems an undesirable way to draw this distinction for speakers of British English. Answer: Not so. The first meaning of "tone" listed in the Oxford English Dictionary is "A musical or vocal sound, esp. with reference to its pitch, quality, and strength". The interval meaning is listed only under "4b". This additional meaning is no impediment whatsoever to using "tone" with its primary meaning. Andy Vermiglio wrote: "The audible consequence of playing a note on an instrument is a tone." Does this hold true for untuned percussion instruments? Answer: Perhaps I should have said "sound" for greater generality. My main point was that "note" should not be used to refer to musical sounds. --Bruno Bruno H. Repp Research Scientist Haskins Laboratories 270 Crown Street New Haven, CT 06511-6695 Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236 FAX (203) 865-8963 e-mail: repp(at)haskins.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 08:53:14 +1000 From: Chris Chambers <chris.chambers(at)SCI.MONASH.EDU.AU> Subject: Re: A note on notes > This is an Americanism -- possibly from deriving from the influence of the > German "ton" -- hence the use of "12-tone music" in the US and "12-note > music" in the UK. I agree that it would be helpful to distinguish the sound > from the printed symbol, but in British English the term "tone" refers to an > interval (equal to two semitones, American "whole-tone"), so this seems an > undesirable way to draw this distinction for speakers of British English. I just checked the oxford english dictionary, and one of the definitions of tone is: "A musical or vocal sound considered with reference to its quality, as acute or grave, sweet or harsh, loud or soft, clear or dull." which appears to refer not to an interval but to single sound. So it looks as though it can refer to both intervals and single sounds in British English. Also, don't Americans also use the word 'tone' to refer to both an interval and a single sound? (I have seen the words "semi-tone" and "tone" etc. used to refer to intervals in American journals.) So is it really an Americanism? -Chris ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:02:24 +0100 From: John Croft <mfmxhjcc(at)STUD.MAN.AC.UK> Subject: Re: A note on notes on 11/5/01 2:47, Bruno Repp at repp(at)ALVIN.HASKINS.YALE.EDU wrote: > Not so. The first meaning of "tone" listed in the Oxford English > Dictionary is "A musical or vocal sound, esp. with reference to its > pitch, quality, and strength". Certainly -- I didn't mean to suggest that "tone" never means a single sound in British English, or that it never means an interval in US English. But while we have our dictionaries out, the OED also gives, under "note", the meaning "a single tone of definite pitch made by a musical instrument, the human voice, etc." > Perhaps I should have said "sound" for greater generality. My main > point was that "note" should not be used to refer to musical sounds. And my point was simply that "tone" merely replaces one ambiguity with another. John _______________________________________ http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/john.croft/ http://homepage.mac.com/castalia/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 22:31:54 -0400 From: Al Bregman <BREGMAN(at)PSYCH.MCGILL.CA> Subject: Re: streams and groups Hi Tony and List, I know what a stream is -- a time-varying sound or sequence of sounds, treated by the auditory system as coming from a single sound source. However, I don't know what is meant by a group. Perhaps the context in which this term was found would be informative. How was it used in the original source? Best, Al ------------------------------------------------- Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor Dept of Psychology, McGill University 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1 Office: Phone: +1 (514) 398-6103 Fax: +1 (514) 398-4896 Home: Phone & Fax: +1 (514) 484-2592 Email: bregman(at)psych.mcgill.ca ------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: A.Watkins <syswatkn(at)READING.AC.UK> To: <AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA> Sent: 10-May-01 11:08 AM Subject: streams and groups > Can anyone help me answer this question from my undergraduate student, > or should the answer be more obvious to me than it is (which is not > very)? > > Hi Tony > > Just going through the grouping and segregation info and getting a bit > confused about what the difference is between a stream and a group. Is > there one? > > Tammy > > -- > Anthony J Watkins > Psychology Department, The University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AL, UK. > phone: +44 (0)118-987-5123 ext. 7559; fax: +44 (0)118-931-6715 > home page: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~syswatkn/home.html > email: syswatkn(at)reading.ac.uk > ------------------------------ End of AUDITORY Digest - 10 May 2001 (#2001-88) ***********************************************