Switching attention between the ears to monitor tones Nigel Harvey

Alternating dichotic presentation of tones was compared with monaural presentation in two different perceptual tasks. When Ss were asked to detect higher frequency target tones in fists of six background tones, they missed less than 5%. However, when the presentation was fast (10/sec) and the tones alternated dichotically, Ss reported “hearing” only three or four tones. In two further experiments, Ss were asked to judge the number of tones or to report their spatial and temporal positions; these tasks were much less accurately performed, for the dichotic lists, than the target detection task. The differing effects of switching rate on these tasks are discussed in relation to the types of processing they require.

[1]  L. L. Elliott,et al.  Backward Masking: Monotic and Dichotic Conditions , 1962 .

[2]  A. Treisman,et al.  Is selective attention selective perception or selective response? A further test. , 1969, Journal of experimental psychology.

[3]  Earl D. Schubert,et al.  Addition to Cherry's Findings on Switching Speech between the Two Ears , 1955 .

[4]  Neville Moray,et al.  Selective attention to pure tones and speech , 1970 .

[5]  Geoff D. Cumming.  Visual perception and metacontrast at rapid input rates , 1971 .

[6]  N Moray.  Introductory experiments in auditory time sharing: detection of intensity and frequency increments. , 1970, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[7]  A. Treisman.  Strategies and models of selective attention. , 1969, Psychological review.

[8]  E A Lawson,et al.  Decisions concerning the Rejected Channel , 1966, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[9]  C T White,et al.  Temporal numerosity and the psychological unit of duration. , 1963, Psychological monographs.

[10]  A. Treisman,et al.  Shifting Attention between the Ears , 1971, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[11]  D. Raab,et al.  Reaction time to stimuli masked by metacontrast. , 1962, Journal of experimental psychology.

[12]  Mark R. Rosenzweig,et al.  Responses to successive auditory stimuli at the cochlea and at the auditory cortex. , 1953 .

[13]  Lawrence T. Guzy,et al.  Synchronization of unimanual and bimanual responses with monotic and dichotic clicks , 1971 .

[14]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Remarks on attention control , 1970 .

[15]  T W Barrett,et al.  Multiple use of the auditory cortex: interaction at a single point. , 1972, Experimental neurology.

[16]  S Axelrod,et al.  Apparent slowing of bimanually alternating pulse trains. , 1974, Journal of experimental psychology.

[17]  L T Guzy,et al.  Perceived rate of monotic and dichotically alternating clicks. , 1968, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[18]  David LaBerge,et al.  On the processing of simple visual and auditory stimuli at distinct levels , 1971 .

[19]  L T Guzy,et al.  Interaural attention shifting as response. , 1972, Journal of experimental psychology.

[20]  Carl R. Eklund.  The Antarctic Skua , 1964 .

[21]  R E Pastore,et al.  Simultaneous two-channel signal detection. II. Correlated and uncorrelated signals. , 1972, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[22]  Seymour Axelrod,et al.  Dependence of apparent rate of alternating clicks on azimuthal separation between sources , 1972 .