Subject: Re: By any other name... From: Bruno Repp <repp@xxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:25:28 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>I think the "most likely" in your second paragraph is the crucial point. If objective methods cannot prove the absence of the signal, then I would argue that the signal is in fact present. Is an objective proof of signal absence typically presented in studies of the auditory continuity effect? --Bruno >I'd say that is exactly the reason why the masked sound appears to >continue throughout the duration of the masker. The brain has no >evidence to assume the attended sound actually ceased. From the same >philosophical point of view you would have to assume the effect can >only persist for as long as the attended signal is, at least to some >degree, predictable, e.g. on a time scale of phonemes for speech >sounds and in music probably related to meter. > >Of course a microphone and some signal processing would most likely >be able to prove that the sound was absent from the acoustic signal. >(Un)fortunately, the brain doesn't have access to the acoustic >signal directly. > >Coincidentally, the quote from Lewis Carroll in the signature below >appears very appropriate for this discussion (especially if you care >to remain in a philosophical mood for a little longer). > >Erik > >-- >Erik Larsen >PhD candidate Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology >Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology >http://web.mit.edu/shbt > >"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and >if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" > -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" > > >Bruno Repp wrote: >>Dear Richard: >> >>There is a philosophical (or methodological?) problem I've had with >>this effect for a long time: If, as you say, "the interrupting >>louder sound stimulates the same peripheral receptors that would >>have been stimulated if the sound had indeed been present", what >>proves that the sound is actually absent? >> >>Best, >>Bruno -- Bruno H. Repp Haskins Laboratories 300 George Street New Haven, CT 06511-6624 Tel. (203) 865-6163, ext. 236 Fax (203) 865-8963 http://www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/repp.html NOTE: I am at Rutgers University, Newark, two days each week, usually Wednesday and Friday, and don't read my Haskins e-mail on those days. To reach me at Rutgers, send e-mail to <repp@xxxxxxxx>.