Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 2001–2007 Friday Noon
POSTER SESSION II
Sheraton Hall, Friday Afternoon, 12:00–1:30
• AUDITORY PROCESSING •
(2001)
An Investigation Into Nonverbal Auditory Stroop. LAUNA C.
LEBOE & TODD A. MONDOR, University of Manitoba—The Stroop
effect is defined as the slowed naming of an ink color when it is presented
in the context of an inconsistent color word. This has been
taken as evidence that it is not possible to completely ignore an irrelevant
dimension. Whereas there have been hundreds of investigations
of the Stroop effect in the visual domain, relatively few studies have
been conducted on an analogous auditory Stroop effect. Previous investigations
of auditory Stroop have been based on examining a conflict
between a verbal label and a physical dimension (i.e., the word
high in a low pitch). In contrast, the present project was undertaken
to determine whether an auditory Stroop effect may be observed when
both dimensions of the sound are nonverbal. If so, this may indicate
that an auditory Stroop effect for nonverbal sounds results from the
inability to ignore an irrelevant dimension of a sound.
(2002)
One More Time: Repetition Effects for Auditory What and Where
Responding. BENJAMIN J. DYSON, University of Sussex, & PHILIP
T. QUINLAN, University of York—Although preservation may seem
unappealing, repetition in the environment may facilitate processing
in the face of continuously changing surroundings. Three experiments
are described in which responses to auditory stimuli varying in pitch
(what) and location (where) were analyzed according to various intertrial
contingencies. Experiment 1 examined Garnerian classification;
Experiment 2 examined classification when target features were selected
within a single dimension or across two dimensions; and Experiment 3
compared feature and conjunction processing. Experiment 1 showed
that the relative separability/integrality between location and frequency
was determined by the relationship across trials. Experiment 2
demonstrated how both cases of within- and between-dimensional
processing may be observed from the same (between) condition. Experiment
3 revealed the locus of the bypass rule to be later than the
top-down influence of a blocked design. The study of repetition highlights
important constraints in stimulus processing that are often overlooked
by simpler approaches that ignore intertrial contingencies.
(2003)
Perception of Complex Auditory Events: A Modeling Approach to
Understanding the Source–Perception Loop. RICHARD E. PAS-
TORE, JEREMY R. GASTON, JESSE D. FLINT, & MATTHEW J.
SOLOMON, SUNY, Binghamton—When making decisions about complex
acoustic events, human listeners utilize differential weightings of
multiple acoustic properties, although not necessarily in the same
manner or in an optimal fashion. Our research takes a broad approach
to the whole source–perception loop. The completed work on posture
contrast in human gait has defined the statistical distribution of
acoustic properties that reflect not only the posture contrast, but also
other source event attributes that may represent noise to the decision
process. These distributions allowed us to develop simple ideal observer
models to predict performance for each walker on the basis of
each of a variety of acoustic properties. The comparison of acrosswalker
patterns of performance for individual models and human listeners
allowed us to begin to identify what properties listeners might
have used to make posture decisions. Our present research utilizes
more complex models that attempt to better approximate the complexity
of human perceptual decision making.
(2004)
Making Up for Lost Time: Is Fast Speech Even Harder for Older
Adults With Hearing Loss? SANDRA L. MCCOY & PATRICIA A.
TUN, Brandeis University, L. CLARKE COX, Boston University
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School of Medicine, & ARTHUR WINGFIELD, Brandeis University—
Older adults have difficulty comprehending fast speech, likely due to
both age-related cognitive and hearing changes. We have shown that
when time is restored to time-compressed speech, older adults can
benefit from this additional processing time, although at faster compression
rates they do not benefit as much as young adults (Wingfield,
Tun, Koh, & Rosen, 1999). The present work studied the relative contributions
of aging, hearing acuity, and cognitive abilities to comprehension
of time-compressed speech and the benefit from time restoration.
We used four participant groups: young normal-hearing adults,
young hearing-impaired adults, older normal-hearing adults, and older
hearing-impaired adults. Listeners recalled narrative passages that
were uncompressed, time compressed, or time compressed with restored
time. Results for the four groups showed a different pattern of
performance for time-compressed speech as well as a benefit from
time restoration, demonstrating effects of both age and hearing acuity
on the comprehension of time-compressed speech.
(2005)
Mismatch Negativity for Local and Global Auditory Processing:
Is It Lateralized? ALEXANDRA LIST, University of California,
Berkeley, TIMOTHY JUSTUS, University of California/VANCHCS,
SHLOMO BENTIN, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, & LYNN C.
ROBERTSON, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Martinez, and University
of California, Berkeley—The left and right cerebral hemispheres
have been asymmetrically implicated in local and global auditory processing,
respectively. Here, we tested this hypothesis using mismatch
negativity (MMN), an electrophysiological index of auditory change
detection. The stimuli were sequences of tones that distinctively allowed
independent manipulation of local and global patterns (Justus &
List, 2005). Local and global variations occurred over short and long
temporal intervals (300 and 900 msec), respectively. The stimuli were
blocked such that either a local or a global repetitive pattern (standard)
was compared with rarely occurring deviant patterns over the same interval.
Importantly, within local standard blocks, global patterns were
continuously changing, whereas within global standard blocks, the
local patterns were continuously changing. Consequently, the elicited
MMN indices could be unequivocally attributed to changes occurring
only at the level of interest (local or global). We examined the MMN
for local and global processing, with specific attention to lateralization.
(2006)
Selective Attention to Spatially Distributed Environmental Sounds.
STEPHEN LAKATOS, Washington State University, ALEXANDER A.
STEVENS, Oregon Health & Science University, & PERRY R. COOK,
Princeton University—Attention to spatially distributed environmental
sounds was examined using a signal processing system that incorporated
head tracking and simulation of first-order reflections. Participants
were cued to a target at one of three simulated locations in
the horizontal plane and determined whether the target occurred at the
cued location during subsequent streams presented at all three locations.
Four conditions were tested: baseline (no head tracking), head
tracking, addition of reflection cues, and orientation of participant’s
head toward the target. Unexpectedly, head movement cues did not improve
detection, and adding reflection cues and orienting toward the
target impaired performance. Detection was best predicted by each
sound’s perceptual “salience,” measured by post hoc sorting and labeling
tasks, and, to a lesser extent, by its spectral content. Results
suggest that attending to a naturalistic sound in a spatially distributed
context may depend less on the richness of available localization cues
than on the attended sound’s perceptual distinctiveness.
(2007)
Differences in Loudness Processing Between Female and Male
Listeners. ELAD SAGI, DeVault Otologic Research Laboratory, IUPUI,
& LISA M. D’ALESSANDRO & KENNETH H. NORWICH, University
of Toronto (sponsored by Kenneth H. Norwich)—Loudness exponents
were compared in 8 female and 7 male participants using pure