Bottomup influences of voice continuity in focusi

Authors: Scott Bressler Salwa Masud Hari Bharadwaj Barbara ShinnCunningham

Publish Date: 2014/03/16

Volume: 78, Issue: 3, Pages: 349-360

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Abstract

Selective auditory attention causes a relative enhancement of the neural representation of important information and suppression of the neural representation of distracting sound which enables a listener to analyze and interpret information of interest Some studies suggest that in both vision and in audition the “unit” on which attention operates is an object an estimate of the information coming from a particular external source out in the world In this view which object ends up in the attentional foreground depends on the interplay of topdown volitional attention and stimulusdriven involuntary attention Here we test the idea that auditory attention is object based by exploring whether continuity of a nonspatial feature talker identity a feature that helps acoustic elements bind into one perceptual object also influences selective attention performance In Experiment 1 we show that perceptual continuity of target talker voice helps listeners report a sequence of spoken target digits embedded in competing reversed digits spoken by different talkers In Experiment 2 we provide evidence that this benefit of voice continuity is obligatory and automatic as if voice continuity biases listeners by making it easier to focus on a subsequent target digit when it is perceptually linked to what was already in the attentional foreground Our results support the idea that feature continuity enhances streaming automatically thereby influencing the dynamic processes that allow listeners to successfully attend to objects through time in the cacophony that assails our ears in many everyday settings

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