title: Temporal predictability as a grouping cue in the perception of auditory streams.
abstract: This study reports a role of temporal regularity on the perception of auditory streams. Listeners were presented with two-tone sequences in an A-B-A-B rhythm that was either regular or had a controlled amount of temporal jitter added independently to each of the B tones. Subjects were asked to report whether they perceived one or two streams. The percentage of trials in which two streams were reported substantially and significantly increased with increasing amounts of temporal jitter. This suggests that temporal predictability may serve as a binding cue during auditory scene analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Sherrington Building, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PT, United Kingdom. vani.rajendran@univ.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Vani G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Rajendran
authors.forename: Nicol S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Harper
authors.forename: Benjamin D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Willmore
authors.forename: William M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Hartmann
authors.forename: Jan W H
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Schnupp
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013998:Time Perception