title: The perception of concurrent sound objects through the use of harmonic enhancement: a study of auditory attention.
abstract: When the frequency of one harmonic, in a sound composed of many harmonics, is briefly mistuned and then returned to the 'in-tune' frequency and phase, observers report hearing this harmonic as a separate tone long after the brief period of mistuning - a phenomenon called harmonic enhancement. Here, we examined the consequence of harmonic enhancement on listeners' ability to detect a brief amplitude notch embedded in one of the harmonics after the period of mistuning. When present, the notch was either on the enhanced harmonic or on a different harmonic. Detection was better on the enhanced harmonic than on a non-enhanced harmonic. This finding suggests that attention was drawn to the enhanced harmonic (which constituted a new sound object) thereby easing the processing of sound features (i.e., a notch) within that object. This is the first evidence of a functional consequence of the after-effect of transient mistuning on auditory perception. Moreover, the findings provide support for an attention-based explanation of the enhancement phenomenon.
authors: Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.
authors: Elena
authors: E
authors: Koulaguina
authors: Brandi Lee
authors: BL
authors: Drisdelle
authors: Claude
authors: C
authors: Alain
authors: Stephan
authors: S
authors: Grimault
authors: Douglas
authors: D
authors: Eck
authors: François
authors: F
authors: Vachon
authors: Pierre
authors: P
authors: Jolicoeur
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D056228:Feedback, Sensory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D012016:Reference Values; D013016:Sound; D055815:Young Adult