Does the octave illusion evoke the interaural tempo illusion?

Akerboom, Simone; Hoopen, Gert ten; Knoop, Arjen van der

doi:10.3758/bf03207156

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Although the studies by Akerboom et al (1985) and Ross et al (1996) do not provide direct evidence for dichotic fusion in the octave illusion, they do raise significant questions about the validity of the suppression model. To further complicate matters, the ear dominance literature contains several ambiguous claims.…”

Section: Simon a Moss Monash Universitymentioning

confidence: 97%

The octave illusion revisited: Suppression or fusion between ears?

Chambers¹,

Mattingley²,

Moss³

2002

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

100

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The octave illusion occurs when each ear receives a sequence of tones alternating by 1 octave but with the high and low tones in different ears. Most listeners perceive these stimuli as a high pitch in one ear alternating with a low pitch in the other ear. D. Deutsch and P. L. Roll (1976) interpreted this phenomenon as evidence for a what-where division of auditory processing caused by sequential interactions between the tones. They argued that the pitch follows the frequency presented to the dominant ear but is lateralized toward the higher frequency component. This model was examined in 4 experiments. Results indicate that the perceived pitch approximates the fundamental frequency and that the illusion does not depend on sequential interactions. The octave illusion may arise from an interaction between dichotic fusion and binaural diplacusis rather than from suppression as proposed by Deutsch.

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Section: Simon a Moss Monash Universitymentioning

confidence: 97%

The octave illusion revisited: Suppression or fusion between ears?

Chambers¹,

Mattingley²,

Moss³

2002

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It should be noted that Deutsch's (1974) original stimuli did not use attack and decay envelopes. However, subsequent studies (e.g., Akerboom, ten Hoopen, & van der Knoop, 1985) have shown the illusion to be robust in the face of both attack and decay envelopes, and also with silent intervals inserted between the tones.…”

Section: Experiments 1 Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived intensity effects in the octave illusion

Sonnadara

Trainor

2005

Perception & Psychophysics

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Complex sounds contain energy at a number of different frequencies. In a typical environment, several objects emit complex sounds overlapping in time. The inner ear performs a frequency analysis over time on the sum of these incoming sound waves, leaving it to higher stages of processing to appropriately recombine the various components into an accurate representation of the original environment. In order to do this, the auditory system must determine what the auditory objects are and where they are located in space.One of the first researchers to study the interaction between the auditory what and where pathways was Deutsch (1974), who demonstrated an interesting phenomenon that she termed the "octave illusion." When participants were presented with an alternating sequence of high (800-Hz) and low (400-Hz) pure tones (such that tones were presented to both ears simultaneously but out of phase, so the left ear was receiving the low tone while the right ear was receiving the high tone, and vice versa), most reported hearing a high tone in the right ear followed by a low tone in the left (see Figures 1A and 1B). When the headphones were reversed so that the left headphone now presented tones to the right ear and the right headphone presented tones to the left, most listeners reported the same percept: The high tone was still heard in the right ear. Most right-handed participants heard the illusion in this manner, but left-handed participants were just as likely to localize the high tone in the left ear as in the right. Deutsch (1983) suggested that this difference might be due to hemispheric dominance, with the high tones perceived as coming from the dominant ear.The octave illusion presents a paradox. Although each ear receives a sequence of high and low tones (see Figures 1A and 1B), Deutsch found that the most commonly reported percept was an alternating pattern with the high tones heard as though they were being presented solely to one ear and the low tones as though they were being presented solely to the other. Interestingly, the low tone is perceived as coming from the ear that is actually being presented with the high tone at that time. In the interpretations of the octave illusion offered by Deutsch and colleagues (e.g., Deutsch, 1975Deutsch, , 1983Deutsch & Roll, 1976), the location (where) information is determined solely by the higher pitched tone, and information from the lower tone is discarded. The pitch (what) information is determined solely by the input to the dominant ear, and information from the nondominant ear appears to be discarded (but see Chambers, Mattingley, & Moss, 2002, 2004, for an alternative, fusion-based model). However, research to date on the octave illusion has been based primarily on verbal reports or methods that do not attempt to quantify the percept across all acoustic dimensions, so it remains unclear whether information from one ear is completely suppressed or whether it makes some contribution to the perceived pitch, timbre, location, and/or intensity of what is heard. W...

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“…The reasons for this discrepancy are not currently clear. Note, however, that listeners in most experiments on the octave illusion have been either preselected on the basis of exhibiting high-frequency localization dominance (e.g., Deutsch, 1978Deutsch, , 1988 or classified as perceiving the illusion without the direction of spectral dominance being measured (e.g., Akerboom, ten Hoopen, & van der Knoop, 1985;McClurkin & Hall, 1981;Ross, Tervaniemi, & Näätänen, 1996). Thus, variability in the direction of spectral dominance during the octave illusion may have gone unnoticed in previous studies.…”

Section: The Suppression Model Is Inconsistent With Theories Of Relatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconsidering evidence for the suppression model of the octave illusion

Chambers

Mattingley

Moss

2004

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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The octave illusion is a compelling perceptual phenomenon that arises when each ear is presented with an alternating sequence of tones separated by one octave, but with the high-and the low-frequency tones in different ears (Figure 1). The majority of listeners are unable to accurately describe these stimuli and, instead, report a high pitch in one ear alternating with a low pitch in the opposite ear. Deutsch (1974) noted that, when presented with these stimuli via headphones, most listeners heard the higher pitch toward the right and the lower pitch toward the left. This trend was particularly salient for righthanded listeners, but not for left-handed listeners. Deutsch (1974) suggested that this handedness effect indexed the lateralization of the higher pitch "toward the side producing the most effective input to the dominant hemisphere" (p. 308).The unique and influential suppression model of this phenomenon was later proposed by Deutsch and Roll (1976). From an analysis of subjective reports, the authors suggested that the octave illusion arises from a high-frequency dominance for sound localization, combined with ear dominance for pitch in which the dominant ear "exercises a steady suppression on the other [ear], so that only the frequencies arriving at one ear are heard" (p. 24). According to this theory, the interplay of ear dominance for pitch and high-frequency dominance for localization results in conflict when the high-frequency tone is presented to the nondominant ear. Under this condition, Deutsch and Roll suggested that listeners perceive the pitch presented to their dominant ear but localize this percept in the opposite ear. The authors thus concluded that the octave illusion reveals separate neural mechanisms governing the what and where of auditory perception, which may be placed in conflict under appropriate conditions. Deutsch (1978, 1980a, 1988) later included a third tenet to the suppression model, suggesting that this unique division of object-and location-based auditory mechanisms was facilitated by sequential interactions between the tones-specifically, the repeated alternation of the same frequencies between the ears.A recent study by Chambers, Mattingley, and Moss (2002) has challenged the validity of the suppression model. From a psychophysical investigation, their results suggest instead that (1) the pitch variation during the octave illusion may arise from established mechanisms of harmonic fusion, (2) the high-frequency dominance for localization proposed by the suppression model regularly fails to emerge, and (3) both the pitch differences between alternate dichotic octaves 1 and the apparent lateralization of single dichotic octaves can occur indepen- The octave illusion is elicited by a sequence of tones presented to each ear that continuously alternate in frequency by one octave, but with high and low frequencies always in different ears. The percept for most listeners is a high pitch in one ear, alternating with a low pitch in the other ear. The influential suppression model o...

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Does the octave illusion evoke the interaural tempo illusion?

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

The octave illusion revisited: Suppression or fusion between ears?

The octave illusion revisited: Suppression or fusion between ears?

Perceived intensity effects in the octave illusion

Reconsidering evidence for the suppression model of the octave illusion

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