title: Categorization of extremely brief auditory stimuli: domain-specific or domain-general processes?
abstract: The present study investigated the minimum amount of auditory stimulation that allows differentiation of spoken voices, instrumental music, and environmental sounds. Three new findings were reported. 1) All stimuli were categorized above chance level with 50 ms-segments. 2) When a peak-level normalization was applied, music and voices started to be accurately categorized with 20 ms-segments. When the root-mean-square (RMS) energy of the stimuli was equalized, voice stimuli were better recognized than music and environmental sounds. 3) Further psychoacoustical analyses suggest that the categorization of extremely brief auditory stimuli depends on the variability of their spectral envelope in the used set. These last two findings challenge the interpretation of the voice superiority effect reported in previously published studies and propose a more parsimonious interpretation in terms of an emerging property of auditory categorization processes.
authors: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR5022, Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France. emmanuel.bigand@u-bourgogne.fr
authors: Emmanuel
authors: E
authors: Bigand
authors: Charles
authors: C
authors: Delbé
authors: Yannick
authors: Y
authors: Gérard
authors: Barbara
authors: B
authors: Tillmann
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000523:psychology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013016:Sound; D014831:Voice