Change Deafness and Holistic Versus Piecemeal Processing of Auditory Scenes
Mentor 1
Dr. Melissa Gregg
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
24-4-2015 2:30 PM
End Date
24-4-2015 3:45 PM
Description
The present study examines change deafness, which is the finding that listeners are often remarkably poor at detecting changes to auditory scenes. In the current study, we determined the extent to which change deafness is due to differences in holistic versus piecemeal processing of naturalistic auditory scenes. There is a well-established body of research showing that the left hemisphere of the brain processes the details, while the right hemisphere processes the global properties of scenes. The purpose of the present study was to determine if change deafness, and perceptual errors in general, may be due to using the wrong hemisphere, i.e., relying on the right hemisphere in a change detection task would cause changes occurring in the details, i.e., individual objects, in the scenes to be missed. On each trial, listeners made a same-different judgment to four-object scenes presented consecutively. When changes occurred, the change was either to a sound from a different category (e.g., a dog changed to a piano tune) or the change was to a sound from within the same category (e.g., a small dog barking changed to a large dog barking).Sounds were presented dichotically such that two sounds were presented to the right ear (i.e., the left hemisphere) and two sounds were presented to the left ear. (i.e., the right hemisphere). The change occurred in the left ear (right hemisphere) on half of the trials and to the right ear (left hemisphere) on the other half of change trials. The results indicated more change deafness to changes from within the same category, as well as hemispheric differences in processing the auditory scenes. Implications for why perceptual errors occur in naturalistic auditory situations typical of everyday life will be discussed.
Change Deafness and Holistic Versus Piecemeal Processing of Auditory Scenes
Union Wisconsin Room
The present study examines change deafness, which is the finding that listeners are often remarkably poor at detecting changes to auditory scenes. In the current study, we determined the extent to which change deafness is due to differences in holistic versus piecemeal processing of naturalistic auditory scenes. There is a well-established body of research showing that the left hemisphere of the brain processes the details, while the right hemisphere processes the global properties of scenes. The purpose of the present study was to determine if change deafness, and perceptual errors in general, may be due to using the wrong hemisphere, i.e., relying on the right hemisphere in a change detection task would cause changes occurring in the details, i.e., individual objects, in the scenes to be missed. On each trial, listeners made a same-different judgment to four-object scenes presented consecutively. When changes occurred, the change was either to a sound from a different category (e.g., a dog changed to a piano tune) or the change was to a sound from within the same category (e.g., a small dog barking changed to a large dog barking).Sounds were presented dichotically such that two sounds were presented to the right ear (i.e., the left hemisphere) and two sounds were presented to the left ear. (i.e., the right hemisphere). The change occurred in the left ear (right hemisphere) on half of the trials and to the right ear (left hemisphere) on the other half of change trials. The results indicated more change deafness to changes from within the same category, as well as hemispheric differences in processing the auditory scenes. Implications for why perceptual errors occur in naturalistic auditory situations typical of everyday life will be discussed.
