Page 220 - Foundations of Cognitive Psychology : Core Readings

The Auditory Scene 225

repeating alternation of two events. Event A was a low tone presented to the
left ear, accompanied by a high tone presented to the right ear. Event B was just
the reverse: a low tone to the right ear together with a high tone to the left. The
high andlow toneswerepuresine wavetones spaced exactlyanoctaveapart.
Because events A and B alternated, each ear was presented with a sequence of
high and low tones. Another way to express it is that while both the high and
low tones bounced back and forth between the ears, the high and low were
always in opposite ears.
However the experience of many listeners did not resemble this description.
Instead they heard a single sound bouncing back and forth between the ears.
Furthermore, the perceived tone alternated between sounding high pitched and
sounding low as it bounced from side to side. The only way this illusion could
be explained was to argue that the listeners were assuming the existence of a
single tone, deriving two different descriptions of it from two different types of
perceptual analyses, and then putting the two descriptions together incorrectly.
Apparently they derived the fact that the tone was changing in frequency by
monitoring the changes in a single ear (usually the right). However, they derived
the position of the assumed single sound by tracking the position of the higher
tone. Therefore, they might report hearing a low tone on the left at the point in
time at which, in actuality, a high tone had been presented on the left. Here we
see an example of pitch and location assigned in the wrong combination to the
representation of a sound. Therefore, this can be classified as a misassignment
illusion just as Treisman and Schmidt’s visual illusion was.
The question of why this illusion occurs can be set aside for the moment.
What is important is that the illusion suggests that an assignment process is
taking place, and this supports the idea that perception is a process of building
descriptions. Only by being built could they be built incorrectly.
These illusions show that there are some similarities in how visual and audi-
tory experiences are organized. A thoughtful discussion of the similarities and
differences between vision and audition can be found in a paper by Bela Julesz
and Ira Hirsh. There is no shortage of parallels in audition to visual processes
5
of organization. This chapter cannot afford the space to mention many exam-
ples, but it can at least discuss two of them, the streaming phenomenon and the
continuity illusion.

Two Comparisons of Scene Analysis in Vision and Audition

Auditory Streaming and Apparent Motion
One auditory phenomenon with a direct parallel in vision is the auditory
streaming effect. This is the phenomenon that originally got me interested in
auditory organization. The effect occurred when listeners were presented with
an endlessly repeating loop of tape on which were recorded a sequence of six
different tones, three high ones and three low ones. The high ones were at least
one and a half octaves above the low ones. High and low tones alternated. If
tones are given numbers according to their pitches with 1 as the lowest and 6
as the highest the tones were arranged in the sequence 142536. The six tones,
shown in figure 9.8, formed a repeating loop that was cycled over and over.