Dynamic sounds and perceptual processes: Exploring the role of amplitude envelope in auditory perception

动态声音和感知过程：探索振幅包络在听觉感知中的作用

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-05749
• 负责人: Schutz, Michael
• 金额: $ 2.26万
• 依托单位: McMaster University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=709948
• 关键词: Dynamic; sounds; perceptual; processes; Exploring

Ventriloquists routinely exploit the perceptual system's propensity to integrate auditory and visual information, using it to trick audiences into “hearing” puppets speak. I have shown that musicians use a parallel approach to trick audiences into hearing musical notes as longer or shorter than their acoustic duration. This novel illusion using natural musical sounds is at odds with earlier research suggesting that vision does not influence auditory perception of duration. Over the course of my current Discovery Grant, my team has established that this discrepancy stems in large part from an acoustic property known as amplitude envelope a sound's “shape over time.” Auditory experiments frequently rely on sounds with “flat” amplitude envelopes exhibiting long sustain periods and/or abrupt offsets. These sounds both afford and necessitate listening strategies unavailable for natural sounds. For example, although vision does not integrate with sounds exhibiting flat (i.e. traditional) amplitude envelopes, it does integrate with sounds exhibiting dynamically decaying (i.e. natural) amplitude envelopes such as those used in my previously described illusion. Intrigued by this discovery, my team began a formal survey of sounds used in past auditory research. To date we have documented a strong bias towards sounds lacking natural amplitude envelopes approximately 93% of stimuli encountered. Together, these findings demonstrate a need for exploring the degree to which theories and predictions derived from experiments with artificial tones generalize to sounds heard outside the laboratory. By providing novel insight into core issues of auditory processing, this program of research will inform a variety of cognate fields. Neuroscientists are increasingly exploring the biological basis of multi-sensory perception, and clinicians are currently working to better understand situations in which typical integration processes fail a common issue for many individuals with autism spectrum disorder. This challenging condition is estimated to directly affect 500,000 Canadians not to mention their caretakers, family members, teachers, and others working to assist them. This proposal will also aid efforts to design effective auditory human-computer-interfaces in medical devices. Industry standards currently mandate these alarms use tones with flat amplitude envelopes, resulting in ineffective and unpleasant interactions. My team's research will explore how the use of natural amplitude envelopes could potentially lead to improvements in alarm efficacy as well as clarify our basic understanding of associative memory involving sound. This holds important economic implications, as Industry Canada evaluates our medical device market at $6.4 billion annually.

腹语表演者经常利用感知系统整合听觉和视觉信息的倾向，用它来欺骗观众，让他们“听到”木偶说话。我已经证明，音乐家使用一种平行的方法来欺骗听众，让他们听到的音符比他们的声音持续时间更长或更短。这种使用自然音乐声音的新颖错觉与早期的研究结果不一致，该研究认为视觉不影响听觉对持续时间的感知。在我目前的发现基金的过程中，我的团队已经确定，这种差异在很大程度上源于一种被称为振幅包络的声学特性，即声音的“随时间变化的形状”。