Effects of Location, Frequency Region, and Time Course of Selective Attention on Auditory Scene Analysis.

Abstract

Often, the sound arriving at the ears is a mixture from many different sources, but only 1 is of interest. To assist with selection, the auditory system structures the incoming input into streams, each of which ideally corresponds to a single source. Some authors have argued that this process of streaming is automatic and invariant, but recent evidence suggests it is affected by attention. In Experiments 1 and 2, it is shown that the effect of attention is not a general suppression of streaming on an unattended side of the ascending auditory pathway or in unattended frequency regions. Experiments 3 and 4 investigate the effect on streaming of physical gaps in the sequence and of brief switches in attention away from a sequence. The results demonstrate that after even short gaps or brief switches in attention, streaming is reset. The implications are discussed, and a hierarchical decomposition model is proposed.

Properties of auditory stream formation

“…Somewhat different results were obtained by Cusack et al [24]. They presented thirty-three 10 s sequences of sounds with an ABA -ABA pattern, separated by gaps with durations of 1, 2, 5 or 10 s, selected in random order.…”

“…However, as pointed out by Moore & Gockel [28], the act of switching attention to the tone sequence may cause a re-setting of the build-up of stream segregation; the effect could be similar to what occurs when the characteristics of the sequence are changed suddenly, as described earlier. Indeed, using a task similar to that of Carlyon et al [26], Cusack et al [24] reported a re-setting of the build-up of stream segregation if attention was briefly diverted away from the ABA -ABA sequence presented to the left ear. As discussed by Cusack et al [24], it is not clear whether the re-setting occurred when attention was diverted away from the ABA -ABA sequence or when it was directed back to it from the different task.…”

Multistability in auditory stream segregation: a predictive coding view

“…It remains to be seen, whether this limit is rather small (e.g. similar, and perhaps even related to, the common limitation found for representations in short-term/working memory [34]) as was suggested by some studies [35] or can be large, provided that the concurrently active proto-objects are sufficiently distinct [36,37]. We discuss the issue of alternative sound representations further in §5.…”

“…one stream having higher saliency than the other, or being favoured by attentional selection) introduces a new level of competition within one of the already defined competitors. Thus, based on this notion, competition occurs hierarchically, as in the hierarchical decomposition model proposed by Cusack et al [36].…”

“…Previous studies [36,55,[64][65][66] have consistently reported perceptual reset (i.e. a restart from the state at the outset dominated by the integrated percept, with the necessity to gather evidence for the segregated organization anew) when parameter changes were introduced in the auditory streaming paradigm.…”