title: The effect of visual context on the identification of ambiguous environmental sounds.
abstract: The influence of the specificity of the visual context on the identification of environmental sounds (i.e., product sounds) was investigated. Two different visual context types (i.e., scene and object contexts)-which varied in the specificity of the semantic information-and a control condition (meaningless images) were employed. A contextual priming paradigm was used. Identification accuracy and response times were determined in two context conditions and one control condition. The results suggest that visual context has a positive effect on sound identification. In addition, two types of product sounds (location-specific and event-specific sounds) were observed which exhibited different sensitivities to scene and object contexts. Furthermore, the results suggest that conceptual interactions exist between an object and a context that do not share the same perceptual domain. Therefore, context should be regarded as a network of conceptually associated items in memory.
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, 2628 CE, Delft, The Netherlands. e.ozcan@tudelft.nl
authors.forename: Elif
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ozcan
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van Egmond
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013016:Sound; D013017:Sound Localization; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult