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Chapter 11
Hearing and Listening
Prenatal hearing
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Babies can hear in utero.
Mother’s heartbeat, breathing, speaking,
singing, and stomach gurgles.
Baby learns to identify mother’s voice in utero.
Hard to measure human auditory capacity.
This includes numerous voices, as well as
everyday sounds, such as walking, laughing,
crying, hammering, …
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Sound enables us to judge shape of struck
objects, quantity of fluid in a vessel, loose
screws.
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Can sort a single sound source from
background, e.g. a person’s voice in a crowded
stadium.
Range and limits of hearing
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Threshold intensity = the softest sound that can
be hear (at a given frequency).
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A plot of threshold intensity versus frequency
yields an audibility function.
Reference frequencies
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Lowest note on a piano: 27.5 Hz
Middle C: 261.63 Hz
Highest note on a piano: 4,186 Hz
Typical phone: 4,000-8,000 Hz
TV whine: 16,000 Hz
Hearing loss
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In the U.S., ~28 million suffer some form of
hearing loss.
(Cf., ~10 million suffer age-related macular
degeneration)
Total Deafness = Cannot hear voices at less tht
82 dB.
Auditory impairment = substandard audibility
function.
Two types of hearing loss
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Conduction: Due to problems in the outer and
middle ear.
Sensory/neural: Due to problems in the inner
ear and brain.
Conduction losses
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Excessive ear wax.
Middle ear infections
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Persistent infections in infants can lead to permanent
sensory deficits, since the brain is still developing.
Otosclerosis: Immobilization of stapes by buildup of
spongy substance.
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Progressive condition
Tends to occur in young adults.
More frequent in females than males.
Treated surgically.
Sensory/neural losses
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Presbycusis: Age related loss of high frequency sensitivity.
Perhaps unavoidable.
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30 years: lose > 15,000 Hz
50 years: lose > 12,000 Hz
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For all ages, men tend to have greater hearing loss than
women.
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Perhaps due to changes in basilar membrane.
Perhaps due to changes in vasculature.
Perhaps due to cumulative exposure to loud noises.
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Supported by reduced hearing loss in African tribal populations.
Noise exposure and hearing loss
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Single explosive events can lead to hearing
loss, e.g. guns.
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Sustained loud noise, as in music or factories
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May be as high as 60% among teens in U.S.
At all frequencies, those who regularly attend rock
concerts have higher auditory thresholds.
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Short exposures to loud noises (> ~60dB) lead
to temporary threshold shifts.
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Such short exposures can occur when using
household appliances.
Women tend to have lower threshold shifts
than men when low frequencies are inducers
Men tend to have lower threshold shifts than
women when high frequencies are inducers.
Drugs and hearing loss
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Nicotine users have higher high-frequency
thresholds than non-users.
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Aspirin also produces temporary hearing loss.
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May be due to changes in circulation, which
deprive cochlea.
The dosage for this is about what is recommended
for handling rheumatoid arthritis.
Aspirin also makes one more susceptible to the
effects of noise.
Compensating for hearing loss
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Hearing aids
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Amplify incoming sounds by up to 60dB.
They tend to favor sounds for speech, i.e. 2504,000Hz.
Compensating for hearing loss
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Cochlear implants
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Help if only cochlea is damaged; loss of auditory nerve or
auditory cortex cannot be helped.
Sounds are transformed into electrical stimulation of the
auditory nerve.
Do not produce normal hearing, but only responsiveness to
sound.
~100,000 people worldwide have cochlear implants. Half
are children; half adults.
~30,000 in U.S. (?)
May work best when implanted early.
Cochlear implants
A prime candidate for cochlear implants is described as:
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having severe to profound sensorineural hearing impairment in both ears
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a functioning auditory nerve is present
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has lived a short amount of time without hearing
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has good speech, language, and communication skills, or in the case of
infants and young children, has a family willing to work toward speech and
language skills with therapy
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other kinds of hearing aids are not helping
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no medical reason to avoid surgery
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lives in or desires to live in the "hearing world"
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has realistic expectations about results
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has the support of family and friends.
Hearing in non-human animals
Noise masking and critical bands
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Auditory masking = not hearing in the
presence of ambient noise, e.g. shower or
traffic.
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dB masked – dB unmasked
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Broad band noise versus bandpass noise
Noise masking and critical bands
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After a certain point, further increases in noise
bandwidth does no more masking.
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The noise bandwidth at which this occurs
defines the critical band.
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The inflection point is the frequency limit
(tuning width) of the fiber.
Variations in masking paradigm
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Varying width of noise of fixed intensity
Varying position of noise of fixed intensity
Removing center frequencies (notched
spectrum)
Varying intensity of noise of fixed bandwidth
and position.
Noise masking
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Bottom line: Noise only masks when it is near
the test frequency
Loudness perception and
discrimination
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Loudness perception can be measured by
matching a variable tone to a target tone.
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Loudness perception can also be measured by
assigning a number to the perceived loudness.
Loudness perception
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Loudness depends on frequency: Equal
loudness contours.
Lower frequencies tend to sound weaker,
which is why audio manufacturers add
mechanisms to increase their strength.
How does perceived loudness vary
with sound intensity?
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Perceived loudness is a logarithmic function of
intensity
Neural bases of loudness perception
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Partially auditory neuron firing rates.
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Partially different neurons respond to different
sound intensities.
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A given neuron can vary firing rate over about
40dB, but normal humans can hear loudness
variations over 130dB.
20-60 dB, 40-80dB, and 60-100 dB.
Partially due to more intense sounds activating
more neurons outside their tuning frequencies.
Loudness discrimination
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Discrimination threshold is the least
perceptible change.
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For loudness, the discrimination threshold is
~1-2dB, though it depends on details of
experimental measuring procedure, etc.
Loudness discrimination
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“Traditional” view: Discrimination of pure
tones depends on changes in the frequency of
firing of the neurons tuned to that frequency.
Profile analysis: Discrimination of tones
depends on comparing changes in a few
frequencies against a backdrop of other
frequencies.
Experiment 1:
 Subjects compared pairs of stimuli.
 Stimuli = combinations of 21 different tones
300-3,000Hz in frequency
 In one of the pair, all 21 tones had the same
intensity.
 In the other of the pair, one of the 21 tones
increased in intensity.
David Green, (1982)
Experiment 1 results:
 Subjects were almost as good in identifying
the changed tone against the backdrop of 20
other tones as they were in identifying the
changed tone in isolation.
David Green, (1982)
Experiment 2:
 Subjects compared pairs of stimuli.
 Stimuli = combinations of different tones 3003,000Hz in frequency
 In one of the pair, all tones had the same intensity.
 In the other of the pair, one of the tones increased in
intensity.
 Green varied the number of tones in each of the
stimuli.
David Green, (1982)
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Experiment 2 results:
Subjects could make finer loudness
discriminations with more tones, i.e., the more
complex background helped make differences
more detectable.
Pitch ≠ frequency
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Pitch is a psychological property; frequency is a
physical property of sound waves.
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Loudness influences pitch:
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At 300Hz, louder is lower.
At 3,000 Hz, louder is higher.
Background tones influence pitch
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Lower background tones make a tone’s pitch higher.
Higher background tones make a tone’s pitch lower.
The Missing Fundamental
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The lowest frequency of a tone is its
fundamental frequency. (Blake & Sekuler’s
text is less than maximally clear on this; cf. the
glossary.)
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Theoretically, a fundamental frequency gives
rise to integer multiples of this frequency. This
multiples are the “harmonics.”
The Missing Fundamental
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Synthesize the patterns only without the
fundamental and the tone sounds like the
original.
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Harmonics produce timbre
Pure tones and musical notes produce tonal
pitch.
Complex aperiodic notes produce atonal pitch.
Neural basis of pitch perception
Perhaps pitch is based on the activity of neurons
corresponding to the fundamental frequency.
(Place theory)
Supporting evidence:
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Damage to a region of the basilar membrane
causes losses of specific frequency sounds.
Cochlear implants can replace specific frequencies.
Neural basis of pitch perception
Evidence contrary to Place Theory:
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Frequencies below 1,000 Hz do not register in any
specific place on the basilar membrane, yet such
tones are easily identified.
Time delayed tones.
Neural basis of pitch perception
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Temporal theory: Pitches correspond to firing
rates of neurons.
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This is observed in some neurons.
Together place theory and temporal theory
explain pitch perception.
Sound Recognition
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How do we separate the sound produced by a
single object from background noise, when all
the sound waves are present at once?
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In other words, how do we form auditory
images?
Sound recognition
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Common spectral content
Common time course
Spectral Harmonics
Familiarity
Localization
Grouping by common spectral
content
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Bregman (1990) experiment 1
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Bregman (1990) experiment 2
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Played a tune “Mary had a little lamb.”
Between the notes, he added noise of similar frequencies.
This blocked hearing of the tune.
Played a tune “Mary had a little lamb.”
Between the notes, he added noise of higher frequencies.
This did not block hearing of the tune.
Recall Gestalt principle of grouping by similarity.
Spectral content
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Cannot be the whole story, since two women’s
voices have similar spectral content, but are
still easily discerned.
Common time course
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Form an image by grouping together the frequencies
that temporally vary together.
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This can be observed by using sound recordings in
which some frequencies are artificially delayed
relative to others.
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This, too, cannot be the whole story, since voices
singing in unison can clearly be discriminated.
Spectral harmonics
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Frequencies that are multiples of each other
tend to be heard together, e.g. a sound
involving frequencies of 440, 880, and 1,320
Hz tend to go together.
Familiarity
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One can overcome background noise with
familiarity or priming.
Practice can do this in Bregman’s (1990)
paradigm.
Familiarity
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It is easier for you to separate voices of
English than of, say, Japanese.
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Variations in musical chords (tones) are more
readily discerned than variations in nonmusical combinations of tones.
Sounds localization
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The direction of a sound is not an intrinsic
feature of the acoustic signal.
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In this regard, sound localization differs from
visual localization.
IID and ITD
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Stevens & Newman, (1934).
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Person seated on a roof with speaker at the end of an arm
with constant elevation relative to listener.
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<1,000 Hz localization was good
2,000 – 4,000 Hz localization was less good
> 4,000 Hz localization improved
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Duplex theory of localization:
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Low frequencies depend on ITD; high frequencies depend on IID.
IID and ITD
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Congenitally blind individuals are better at
sound localization.
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Brain plasticity appears to support this.
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This plasticity is seen in both young and
somewhat later cases of deafness.
Cocktail party effect
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Play a tone to one ear.
Adding noise to that ear blocks the tone.
Adding noise to the other ear unblocks the
tone.
This is binaural unmasking. (Note the
confusing definition in B&S.)
Cocktail party effect
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Binaural masking-level difference (BLMD) =
difference in audibility between monaural and
binaural cases.
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Unmasking is apparently caused by
localization of tone in one place and noise in
another.
Cocktail party effect
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Hearing one’s voice attracts attention.
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This suggests that you are normally processing the
background information in the “background”.
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There is a vast literature on dichotic listening. This
attempts to study, among other things, how attention
influences what auditory information is processed.
Mislocalization
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Happens most often with sounds directly in
front or directly in back.
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More common with sounds of a narrow band
of frequencies; reduced with broadband noise.
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Reduced with reflecting surfaces.
Mislocalization compensation
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When IID and ITD cues fail, turn your head.
2.
Pinnas of ears helps.
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Verify this with headphones or earmuffs.
Especially useful in cases of localization of elevation.
Comparisons of localizations with recordings in one’s
own ears versus those in others’ ears shows difference.
Comparisons of localizations with materials in ear folds.
Sound through headphones
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Music is often localized in your head; not in external space.
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The reason is that the sounds are recorded from several
microphones near the musicians.
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To have an auditory image, one has to use just two
microphones to record.
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One must also not move ones head.
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Scientists are trying to develop a headphone system that can
compensate for head movements.
Mislocalization with eyes and ears
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Visual dominance over
auditory information
Eyes mislead about
sound location:
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In movie theaters.
Ventriloquism
Pseudophone
Reasons for visual dominance
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Echoes are misdirections, but light does not so
often reflect.
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Light travels faster than sound, so provides a
more nearly instantaneous measure of location.
Visual acuity and localization
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If you have a small region of high acuity, you
had best be able to use audition to guide your
direction of it.
If you have a small region of high acuity, you had best be able
to use audition to guide your direction of it.
Sound localization: Distance
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People are good indoors, since there are
echoes.
People are poor outdoors tending to
underestimate distances.
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They use intensity to measure.
Moving in the direction of the sound is helpful e.g.
auditory looming.
Auditory Looming
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As an approaching object makes a sound, the
object looms forward.
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Humans overestimate the change in sound between
approaching and receding. (Frequency,
loudness?).
Approaching sounds seems closer than they really
are.
Monkeys are susceptible to auditory loom.
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Auditory and visual interactions
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Two black spots moving toward each other
then back is ambiguous between
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Colliding
One passing behind the other
Properly timed sounds render the image
unambiguous.
Auditory and visual interactions
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Replicated with fMRI.
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With bouncing (hence multimodal processing)
more areas of the brain are active.
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With bouncing (hence multimodal processing)
each area of the brain was less active than in a
purely visual or purely auditory task.
Auditory and visual interactions
Guttman, Gilroy, & Blake, (2004).
 Subjects compared two “visual rhythms.”
 Visual rhythms consist of gratings of light and dark
bars that moved in rapid and unpredictable ways.
 Subjects were asked to judge whether two successive
visual rhythms were the same or different.
 Version 1: Musical rhythm matched movements of
gratings.
 Version 2: Musical rhythm did not match movements
of gratings.
Auditory and visual interactions
Guttman, Gilroy, & Blake, (2004) results:
People’s judgments were heavily influenced by
sound.
 When the auditory rhythm matched the visual
rhythm, subjects were nearly perfect.
 When the auditory rhythm did not match the
visual rhythm, subject performed some better
than chance.
Auditory and visual interactions
Shams, Kamitani, & Shimojo, (2000).
 Single flash presented alone seen as single
flash.
 Single flash presented in conjunction with an
auditory click seen as a double flash.