Temporal weights in the perception of sound intensity: Effects of sound duration and number of temporal segments

Abstract

Loudness is a fundamental aspect of auditory perception that is closely related to the physical level of the sound. However, it has been demonstrated that, in contrast to a sound level meter, human listeners do not weight all temporal segments of a sound equally. Instead, the beginning of a sound is more important for loudness estimation than later temporal portions. The present study investigates the mechanism underlying this primacy effect by varying the number of equal-duration temporal segments (5 and 20) and the total duration of the sound (1.0 to 10.0 s) in a factorial design. Pronounced primacy effects were observed for all 20-segment sounds. The temporal weights for the five-segment sounds are similar to those for the 20-segment sounds when the weights of the segments covering the same temporal range as a segment of the five-segment sounds are averaged. The primacy effect can be described by an exponential decay function with a time constant of about 200 ms. Thus, the temporal weight assigned to a specific temporal portion of a sound is determined by the time delay between sound onset and segment onset rather than by the number of segments or the total duration of the sound.

Temporal weights in loudness: Investigation of the effects of background noise and sound level

“…To estimate temporal loudness weights, we used an established experimental paradigm from previous experiments (e.g., [7,10,11]). The target stimuli were level-fluctuating narrowband noises consisting of ten contiguous temporal segments.…”

“…One reason may be that not all temporal parts of a sound are weighted equally when listeners judge loudness. Previous studies consistently show that the beginning of a time-varying sound is of higher importance for the perception of loudness than later temporal parts [7–9], which has been referred to as a primacy effect (for a review see [10]). The primacy effect can be described by an exponential decay function with a time-constant of about 200–300 ms [10,11].…”

“…Previous studies consistently show that the beginning of a time-varying sound is of higher importance for the perception of loudness than later temporal parts [7–9], which has been referred to as a primacy effect (for a review see [10]). The primacy effect can be described by an exponential decay function with a time-constant of about 200–300 ms [10,11]. The temporal weight at the beginning of the sound is 4 to 5 times higher than the asymptotic weight, and the weight assigned to a temporal portion of a sound is the integral of this function over the segment duration [11].…”

Faster model updating in autism during early sensory processing

“…Future studies should systematically compare this seemingly divergent pattern of aberrant weighting of prediction errors during early sensory perception versus behavior at higher levels of information-processing (for example by investigating different types of primacy biases, e.g. Bronfman et al, 2016;Kotchoubey, 2014;Oberfeld et al, 2018). Another interesting research direction might be to formalize these observations and theories in a computational model of, for example, trial-by-trial MMN responses (e.g.…”

Contribution of frequency bands to the loudness of broadband sounds: Tonal and noise stimuli

“…Cognitive and memory effects have been more widely explored in studies of temporal weighting of loudness, where the initial and final segments of a sound are generally found to receive greater weight (Dittrich and Oberfeld, 2009;Oberfeld, 2009Oberfeld, , 2015Oberfeld and Plank, 2011;Oberfeld et al, 2018;Pedersen and Ellermeier, 2008;Rennies and Verhey, 2009). Pedersen and Ellermeier (2008) found that correct-answer feedback led to a reduction in the weight assigned to the initial and final segments, a shift to more optimum temporal weights.…”