Streaming and sound localization with a preceding distractor

Kopčo, Norbert; Andrejková, Gabriela; Best, Virginia; Shinn‐Cunningham, Barbara

doi:10.1121/1.4979167

Cited by 12 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…Thus, while the similarity of the distractor and target was expected to result in grouping of these two objects into one stream for the one-click distractor, the temporal mismatch in the eight-click distractor was expected to result in the target being processed in a separate stream, possibly reducing any bias due to the immediately preceding one-click distractor. However, as shown in Kopčo et al (2017), in which very similar distractor conditions were tested, the eight-click distractor can actually cause an increase in the response bias.…”

Section: Effect Of Preceding Distractormentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Two experiments were performed using setup, stimuli, and procedures similar to the previous CP studies (Kopčo et al, 2007;Kopčo et al, 2015;Kopčo et al, 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, experiment 2 aimed to test whether the distractor has to be perceptually similar to the target in order to induce contextual bias, as is the case when perceptual grouping influences performance (Best et al, 2007;Kopčo et al, 2017), or whether any distractor stimulus with a similar spatiotemporal distribution of acoustic energy would suffice to induce it. Therefore, a condition with a noise distractor dissimilar from the target was added.…”

Section: Effect Of Stimulus Spatiotemporal Distribution and Target-dimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several previous studies have shown that target localization can be influenced by stimuli preceding the target on the time scale of seconds. These studies examined various phenomena and their underlying mechanisms, including adaptation of the neural representation due to prolonged exposure to preceding stimuli (Carlile et al, 2001;Dahmen et al, 2010;Furukawa, 2005;Kashino and Nishida, 1998;Phillips and Hall, 2005), attentional cuing (Maddox et al, 2014;Maier et al, 2010;Sach et al, 2000), buildup of the precedence effect (Freyman et al, 1991), auditory grouping (Best et al, 2007;Kopčo et al, 2017), spatial memory (Martin et al, 2011), and attentional effects utilizing a priori information about the position of the target and maskers (Kopčo et al, 2010). The current study examines which of these phenomena and their underlying mechanisms might be related to CP.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal characteristics of contextual effects in sound localization

Hládek

Tomoriová

Kopčo

2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Two experiments examined plasticity induced by context in a simple target localization task. The context was represented by interleaved localization trials with the target preceded by a distractor. In a previous study, the context induced large response shifts when the target and distractor stimuli were identical 2-ms-noise clicks [Kopčo, Best, and Shinn-Cunningham (2007). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 420-432]. Here, the temporal characteristics of the contextual effect were examined for the same stimuli. Experiment 1 manipulated the context presentation rate and the distractor-target inter-stimulus interval (ISI). Experiment 2 manipulated the temporal structure of the context stimulus, replacing the one-click distractor either by a distractor consisting of eight sequentially presented clicks or by a noise burst with total energy and duration identical to the eight-click distractor. In experiment 1, the contextual shift size increased with increasing context rate while being largely independent of ISI. In experiment 2, the eight-click-distractor induced a stronger shift than the one-click-distractor context, while the noise-distractor context induced a very small shift. These results suggest that contextual plasticity is an adaptation driven both by low-level factors like spatiotemporal context distribution and higher-level factors like perceptual similarity between the stimuli, possibly related to precedence buildup.

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Section: Effect Of Preceding Distractormentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Two experiments were performed using setup, stimuli, and procedures similar to the previous CP studies (Kopčo et al, 2007;Kopčo et al, 2015;Kopčo et al, 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effect Of Stimulus Spatiotemporal Distribution and Target-dimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal characteristics of contextual effects in sound localization

Hládek

Tomoriová

Kopčo

2017

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…This is consistent with our normal-hearing data, which means that broadband sound localization is more immune to both the negative (normal hearing) and positive (plugged hearing) effects of background noise. Although we investigated what happens when targets and background noise overlap in time, auditory spatial processing can adapt to sounds that precede a target sound but do not overlap (Dahmen et al, 2010; Maier et al, 2012; Stange et al, 2013; Phillips, 2014; Kopco et al, 2017; Tolnai et al, 2017; Ferger et al, 2018). However, previous work has shown that adaptation cannot fully explain the effects of concurrent background noise on sound localization (Best et al, 2005), which points toward additional mechanisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using background noise to improve sound localization following simulated hearing loss

Ryan-Warden

Keating

2019

Preprint

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Many listening abilities become more difficult in noisy environments, particularly following hearing loss. Sound localization can be disrupted even if target sounds are clearly audible and distinct from background noise. Since subjects locate sounds by comparing the input to the two ears, sound localization is also considerably impaired by unilateral hearing loss. Currently, however, it is unclear whether the effects of unilateral hearing loss are worsened by background noise. To address this, we measured sound localization abilities in the presence or absence of broadband background noise. Adult human subjects of either sex were tested with normal hearing or with a simulated hearing loss in one ear (earplug). To isolate the role of binaural processing, we tested subjects with narrowband target sounds. Surprisingly, we found that continuous background noise improved narrowband sound localization following simulated unilateral hearing loss. By contrast, we found the opposite effect under normal hearing conditions, with background noise producing illusory shifts in sound localization. Previous attempts to model these shifts are inconsistent with behavioural and neurophysiological data. However, here we found that a simple hemispheric model of sound localization provides an explanation for our results, and provides key hypotheses for future neurophysiological studies. Overall, our results suggest that continuous background noise may be used to improve sound localization under the right circumstances. This has important implications for real-world hearing, both in normal-hearing subjects and the hearing-impaired.Significance StatementIn noisy environments, many listening abilities become more difficult, even if target sounds are clearly audible. For example, background noise can produce illusory shifts in the perceived direction of target sounds. Because sound localization relies on the two ears working together, it is also distorted by a hearing loss in one ear. We might therefore expect background noise to worsen the effects of unilateral hearing loss. Surprisingly, we found the opposite, with background noise improving sound localization when we simulated a hearing loss in one ear. A simple hemispheric model of sound localization also helped explain the negative effects of background noise under normal hearing conditions. Overall, our results highlight the potential for using background noise to improve sound localization.

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