Abstract
When portions of a sound are replaced by a potential masker, the missing fragments may be perceptually restored, resulting in apparent continuity of the interrupted signal. This phenomenon has been examined extensively by using pulsation threshold, auditory induction, and phonemic restoration paradigms in which two sounds, the inducer and the inducee, are alternated (ABABA ... ), and the conditions required for apparent continuity of the lower amplitude inducee are determined. Previous studies have generally neglected to examine concomitant changes produced in the inducing sound. Results from the present experiments have demonstrated decreases in the loudness of inducers using inducer/inducee pairs consisting of tone/tone and noise/noise, as well as the noise/speech pairs associated with phonemic restorations. Interestingly, reductions in inducer loudness occurred even when the inducee was heard as discontinuous, and these decreases in loudness were accompanied by graded increases in apparent duration of the inducee, contrary to the conventional view of auditory induction as an all-or-none phenomenon. Under some conditions, the reduced loudness of the inducer was coupled with a marked alteration in its timbre. Especially profound changes in the inducer quality occurred when the alternating stimuli were tones having the same frequency and differing only in intensity-it seems that following subtraction of components corresponding to the inducee, an anomalous auditory residue remained that did not correspond to the representation of a tone.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bashford, J. A., Jr., Rjener, K. R., &Warren, R. M. (1992). Increasing the intelligibility of speech through multiple phonemic restorations.Perception & Psychophysics,51, 211–217.
Bashford, J. A., Jr., &Warren, R. M. (1979). Perceptual synthesis of deleted phonemes. In J. J. Wolf & D. H. Klatt (Eds.),Speech communication papers (pp. 423–426). New York: Acoustical Society of America.
Bashford, J. A., Jr., &Warren, R. M. (1987). Multiple phonemic restorations follow the rules for auditory induction.Perception & Psychophysics,42, 114–121.
Bregman, A. S. (1990).Auditory scene analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Houtgast, T. (1972). Psychophysical evidence for lateral inhibition in hearing.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,51, 1885–1894.
Javel, E. (1986). Basic response properties of auditory nerve fibers. In R. S. Altschuler, D. W. Hoffman, & R. P. Bobbin (Eds.),Neurobiology of hearing: The cochlea (pp. 213–245). New York: Raven Press.
Neter, J., &Wasserman, W. (1974).Applied linear statistical models. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin.
Repp, B. H. (1992). Perceptua1 restoration of a “missing” speech sound: Auditory induction or illusion?Perception & Psychophysics,51, 14–32.
Smith, R. L. (1988). Encoding of sound intensity by auditory neurons. In G. M. Edelman, W. E. Gall, & W. M. Cowan (Eds.),Auditory function: Neurobiological bases of hearing (pp. 243–274). New York: Wiley.
Warren, R. M. (1984). Perceptual restoration of obliterated sounds.Psychological Bulletin,96, 371–383.
Warren, R. M., Obusek, C. J., &Ackroff, J. M. (1972). Auditory induction: Perceptual synthesis of absent sounds.Science,176, 1149–1151.
Warren, R. M., &Sherman, G. L. (1974). Phonemic restorations based on subsequent context.Perception & Psychophysics,16, 150–156.
Wrightson, J. M., &Warren, R. M. (1981). Incomplete auditory induction of tones alternated with noise: Effects occurring below the pulsation threshold.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,69, S105-S106. (Abstract)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (DC00208). The valuable contributions of Keri R. Riener and Makio Kashino are gratefully acknowledged. Correspondence should be addressed to R. M. Warren, Department of Psychology, Garland Hall, University of WisconsinMilwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Warren, R.M., Bashford, J.A., Healy, E.W. et al. Auditory induction: Reciprocal changes in alternating sounds. Perception & Psychophysics 55, 313–322 (1994). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207602
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207602