Attention - Auditory Perception

40 important questions on Attention - Auditory Perception

What is the physical definition of sound?

Sound is pressure changes in the air or other medium (e.g. sound waves in water)

What is the perceptual definition of sound?

Sound is the experience (I.e. sensation) we have when we hear

When does a pure tone occur?

Occurs when the change in air pressure occur in a pattern described by a mathematical function called a sine wave
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What range of Hz can humans hear?

20 Hz to about 20,000 Hz

What does amplitude affect? (The greater the amplitude, _________)

The greater the amplitude, the louder a sound seems

How is loudness measured? (Units)

Phons

What is a complex tone?

A sound which has more than one (sine-wave) frequency component

What is pitch determined by? A pure tone & complex tone

Pure tone: Frequency
Complex tone: Usually the fundamental frequency

Is pitch a psychological quantity or physical quantity?

Psychological

What are pitches of the same note (e.g. C1 and C2) separated by?

Octave

What is the term when notes with the same letter (e.g. C1 and C2) sound similar? What are they said to have the same of?

They have the same chroma

As one moves from the left to the right side of the keyboard (from C1 to C2), what increases?

Tone height

What 2 attributes does pitch contain?

Tone height and chroma

Chroma is ______ in that neighbouring letters of the same type (e.g. C1 and C2) sound similar

Cyclic

What does the term 'missing fundamental' mean?

A sound is said to have a missing fundamental when its overtones suggest a fundamental frequency but the sound lacks a component at the fundamental frequency itself.

Humans will perceive the fundamental frequency to be present even when it is absent.

Why will the complex tone continue to repeat at the fundamental frequency, even when the fundamental frequency is absent?

Because all the other components of the tone are multiples of the fundamental frequency.

Are musical sounds periodic or aperiodic?

Periodic

What is auditory localisation?

It is a ability of a listener to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance

What cues is auditory localisation based on?

Binaural and monaural cues

What is interaural time difference?

One ear will hear the sound before the other ear

What is the cone of confusion?

Any two points connected by a circumference line on the surface of the cone will have the same difference in distance to the two ears

Can binaural cues be used to distinguish between the two points (Point A & B)? Explain.

No, binaural cues cannot be used to distinguish between the two points because they have the same interaural time difference and interaural level difference

How is the cone of confusion solved?

Monaural cue for elevation

What is the Monaural Cue for Elevation?

Sound coming from different elevations bounces off different parts of the pinna before entering the ear canal. Sound acquires characteristic frequency notches that depend on its elevation, which can be used to determine the elevation of the sound source

In a room, how does sound travel to the listener?

Directly and indirectly

What is the Precedence Effect?

If you hear the same sound twice with a temporal separation of 5-20ms, you will not register the 2nd sound. So, you will not hear an echo

When will you hear an echo?

If the temporal separation between the 2 sounds is more than about a 10th of a second, you will hear the 2 sounds as separate

What are the 4 factors that determine the quality of the architectural acoustics?

RIBS

Reverberation time
Intimacy time
Bass ratio
Spaciousness factor

What is reverberation time? How long should a reverberation time be for a concert hall and a opera hall?


Time taken for sound to be decreased by 60dB.

A concert hall - 2 seconds.
An opera hall - 1.5 seconds to make the voices more distinguishable.

What is intimacy time? What is the intimacy time for a concert hall which has “good acoustics”?

The temporal difference between when the direct sound arrives and the 1st indirect sound arrives . Intimacy time of about 20ms

What is base ratio? Do we want a high or low base ratio?

Measured for the indirect sound
  • It is the ratio of low frequencies to middle frequencies for the indirect sound
  • Ideally, you want a high base ratio

What is the spaciousness factor? Do we want a high or low spaciousness factor?


The ratio of indirect sound to total sound
The greater the proportion of indirect sound, the greater the spaciousness factor

Ideally, you want a high spaciousness factor

How to fix the problem of the quality of sounds in concert halls being dependent on whether it is full or empty?

Use pillows

What are the 5 cues that people use to separate auditory streams?

LOTAE

Location
Onset Time
Timbre and Pitch
Auditory Continuity
Experiences

Is location needed for separating auditory streams?

No, but it is a very strong cue for segregation

How does location help people to separate auditory streams?

Because the 3 musicians will not be playing exactly the same notes at exactly the same time, you will be able to hear that they occupy separate locations

How does onset time help people to separate auditory streams?

If the 2 sounds start at different times, chances are that they originate from different sources
However, if the 2 sounds start at the same time, chances are that they come from the same source

How does timbre & pitch help people to separate auditory streams? How do we separate instruments with the same timbre?

It is easy to segregate musical instruments that have different timbres
Even instruments with the same timbre can be separated on the basis of pitch

How does auditory continuity help people to separate auditory streams?

Tones interrupted by silence are heard as distinct
Tones interrupted by noise (or another stimulus) are heard as continuous (Deutsch, 1999)
Humans assume tones continue through the noise

How does experience help people to separate auditory streams? Use a example involving a person

If you know what a particular person sounds like, you are more likely to be able to detect the presence of that sound in the background noise

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