Effect of rhythmic attention on the segregation of interleaved melodies.
As previously suggested, attention may increase segregation via enhancement and suppression sensory mechanisms. To test this hypothesis, we proposed an interleaved melody paradigm with two rhythm conditions applied to familiar target melodies and unfamiliar distractor melodies sharing pitch and timbre properties. When rhythms of both target and distractor were irregular, target melodies were identified above chance level. A sensory enhancement mechanism guided by listeners' knowledge may have helped to extract targets from the interleaved sequence. When the distractor was rhythmically regular, performance was increased, suggesting that the distractor may have been suppressed by a sensory suppression mechanism.
Devergie
Aymeric
A
Laboratoire de Neurosciences Sensorielles, Comportement et Cognition, CNRS UMR 5020, Université Lyon 1, 69366 Lyon Cedex 07, France. aymeric.devergie@olfac.univ-lyon1.fr
Grimault
Nicolas
N
Tillmann
Barbara
B
Berthommier
Frédéric
F
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010507:Periodicity; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D013998:Time Perception; D055815:Young Adult