On the mechanism of rhythm perception as a basis of auditory communication

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It had been often required that any empirical study of auditory perception start from the peripheral level especially in the field of acoustics. The present research project was an attempt to establish a systematic way to shift our viewpoint to the perceptual mechanism at a higher level, which is more closely related to our everyday experience. Because auditory perception is the basis of our auditory communication, we often used materials which could be related to speech or music. Firstly, we investigated how the perception of duration or: duration ratio is affected by the physical properties of duration markers. We found systematic effects of relative levels or temporal distributions of sound energy on duration perception. Secondly, we tried to find the cues of duration perception in general, studying auditory phenomena as the gap transfer illusion. We proposed a model, in which onsets and terminations of sounds are connected each other perceptually obeying the proximity principle. Thirdly, we investigated the principles of auditory organization using stimulus patterns consisting of frequency-modulated components. Perceptual interactions between the components were examined. Recently, we established the gap transfer illusion using harmonic frequency glides. Stimulus patterns of this kind seem to be suitable materials to investigate the basic mechanism of speech and music: perception, and we are planning to connect the present results directly with speech and music by introducing more complex stimulus patterns.