Ecological psychoacoustics / edited by John G. Neuhoff.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Ecological Psychoacoustics" outlines recent advances in dynamic, cognitive, and ecological investigations of auditory perception and ties this work to findings in more traditional areas of psychoacoustics. The book illuminates some of the converging evidence that is beginning to emerge from these traditionally divergent fields, providing a scientifically rigorous, "real world" perspective on auditory perception, cognition, and action. In a natural listening environment almost all sounds are dynamic, complex, and heard concurrently with other sounds. Yet, historically, traditional psychoacoustics has examined the perception of static, impoverished stimuli presented in isolation. "Ecological Psychoacoustics" examines recent work that challenges some of the traditional ideas about auditory perception that were established with these impoverished stimuli and provides a focused look at the perceptual processes that are more likely to occur in natural settings. It examines basic psychoacoustics from a more cognitive and ecological perspective. It provides broad coverage including both basic and applied research in auditory perception; and coherence and cross referencing among chapters.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Ecological Psychoacoustics: Introduction and History
• Historical Perspective (p. 4)
• The Available Technology (p. 4)
• Dominant Psychological Paradigms (p. 6)
• Evolution and Audition (p. 7)
• Ecological, External, and Internal Validity (p. 8)
• Psychoacoustics Versus Auditory Cognition (p. 10)
• Summary (p. 12)
• References (p. 12)
• 2 Auditory Perceptual Organization Inside and Outside the Laboratory
• How Does Perceptual Organization Affect What We Hear? (p. 16)
• Effect on Ease of Selection (p. 16)
• Effect on Pitch and Timbre (p. 18)
• Effect on Temporal Order Judgment and Rhythm (p. 19)
• Effect on Perceived Spatial Distribution (p. 20)
• Regularities Used by the Auditory System for Scene Analysis (p. 21)
• Harmonicity (p. 21)
• Amplitude Variations Over Time (p. 22)
• Location (p. 23)
• Frequency (p. 24)
• Pitch (p. 24)
• Timbre (p. 26)
• Similarity of Level (p. 28)
• Higher Order Commonalities (p. 29)
• Grouping and Selective Attention (p. 30)
• The Hierarchical Decomposition Model (p. 31)
• Mismatch Negativity Using Electroencephalography and Magnetoencephalography (p. 33)
• Statistical Analysis of Natural Sounds (p. 34)
• Correlation (p. 34)
• Independent Component Analysis (p. 36)
• Computational Models (p. 38)
• Neural Substrate of Grouping (p. 39)
• Multiple Neural Levels? (p. 39)
• Neural Instantiation: Synchrony of Firing (p. 41)
• Automaticity and Innateness (p. 42)
• Perceptual Grouping of Degraded Signals (p. 42)
• Multimodal Grouping (p. 43)
• Summary (p. 44)
• Acknowledgements (p. 44)
• References (p. 44)
• 3 Attention and Timing
• Theoretical Overview: A Biological Orientation (p. 49)
• Basic Assumptions (p. 50)
• Entrainment and Attending (p. 50)
• An Exemplar Entrainment Model (p. 52)
• Adaptive Organism (p. 56)
• Summary of Theoretical Overview (p. 61)
• Dynamic Attending in Different Tasks (p. 61)
• Time Estimation and Anticipatory Attending (p. 62)
• Time Discrimination and Expectancy Violations (p. 70)
• Target Identification Tasks and Reactive Attending (p. 79)
• Acknowledgments (p. 81)
• References (p. 81)
• 4 Auditory Motion and Localization
• Stationary Localization (p. 89)
• Horizon and Azimuth (p. 92)
• Elevation (p. 92)
• Distance (p. 93)
• Development (p. 94)
• Motion Perception (p. 95)
• Auditory Looming (p. 97)
• Echolocation (p. 103)
• References (p. 106)
• 5 From Gibson's Fire to Gestalts: A Bridge-Building Theory of Perceptual Objecthood
• The Importance of Objecthood (p. 114)
• The Gestalt Perspective (p. 115)
• The Spatial Metaphor (p. 116)
• Modern Theories of Auditory Objecthood (p. 118)
• Summary: Competing Perspectives (p. 123)
• How to Think About Objecthood (p. 124)
• Perceptual Numerosity and the Theory of Indispensable Attributes (p. 126)
• The Implied Mapping (p. 128)
• The Quantification of Objects (p. 129)
• Visual Quantification (p. 132)
• Auditory Quantification (p. 135)
• An Experiment (p. 138)
• A Computational Model of Auditory Grouping (p. 140)
• The Ecology of Circular Tone Flows (p. 143)
• Acknowledgement (p. 144)
• References (p. 144)
• 6 Ecological Psychoacoustics and Auditory Displays: Hearing, Grouping, and Meaning Making
• Brief History and Terminology (p. 150)
• What Designers Need to Know: Auditory Display Subtasks (p. 154)
• Perception (p. 154)
• Stream Analysis (p. 155)
• Conception and Meaning Making (p. 155)
• What Has Traditional Psychoacoustics Contributed to Auditory Display? (p. 156)
• A Framework: Vocabulary, Methods, and Limits (p. 157)
• Rigorous Experimental Methods (p. 157)
• Loudness (p. 157)
• Masking (p. 158)
• Pitch (p. 158)
• Interacting Dimensions (p. 159)
• Tempo and Rhythm (p. 159)
• Timbre (p. 159)
• Pain and Fatigue (p. 160)
• Spatial Location (p. 160)
• Streaming (p. 161)
• Other Aspects of Perception (p. 161)
• Training and Practice Effects (p. 162)
• What Have Been the Limitations of Traditional Psychoacoustics (In Terms of Auditory Displays)? (p. 162)
• Sound Attributes (p. 162)
• Listening Environment (p. 163)
• How Parameters Interact within a Sound (p. 164)
• Limitations in Tasks and Cognitive Demands (p. 164)
• Metaphors and Conceptual Mappings (p. 165)
• Rigid Experimental Methods and Language (p. 165)
• What has Recent Research into Higher Level Phenomena Offered to Auditory Display? (p. 166)
• Gibsonian Thinking in General (p. 166)
• Complex, Dynamic (Ecological) Sounds (p. 166)
• Acoustic Ecologies for Overall Design (p. 167)
• Metaphors and Conceptual Mappings (p. 168)
• Alternative Experimental Methods (p. 169)
• Where are We now and Where do We Need to Go vis-a-vis Auditory Display? (p. 169)
• Synergies Between Auditory Display and Ecological Psychoacoustics Research (p. 170)
• References (p. 170)
• 7 Environmental Acoustics Psychological Assessment of Noise
• Psychophysical Methods and Physical Metrics for the Evaluation of Noise (p. 176)
• Studies of Noise Criteria (p. 179)
• Category Scale (p. 179)
• Category Scale (One Judgment by One Subject) (p. 181)
• Category Splitting Procedure (p. 181)
• Frequency of the Response (p. 181)
• Continuous Judgments by Category (p. 183)
• The Effect of Cultural and Social Factors as A Frame of Reference (p. 185)
• The Effect of the Subjective Meaning of Sound Sources (p. 185)
• The Effect of Cultural Difference (p. 185)
• Conclusion (p. 188)
• References (p. 188)
• 8 Ecological Developmental Psychoacoustics
• Developmental Psychoacoustics and the Pickup of Acoustic Information (p. 192)
• Development of Frequency, Intensity, and Temporal Resolution (p. 192)
• Development of Sound Localization (p. 195)
• Development of Sound Source Segregation (p. 197)
• Development of Listening Under Uncertain Conditions (p. 199)
• Development of Intersensory Perception (p. 201)
• The Development of Acoustic Information Pickup: Conclusions (p. 203)
• Auditory Perceptual Learning and Development (p. 203)
• Active Auditory Learning (p. 204)
• Increasing Specificity and Economy of Auditory Perception (p. 205)
• The Discovery of Order in the Stream of Acoustic Information (p. 207)
• Increasing Flexibility of Auditory Perception (p. 209)
• Auditory Perceptual Learning and Development: Conclusions (p. 210)
• General Conclusions (p. 210)
• References (p. 211)
• 9 Perceiving Articulatory Events: Lessons for an Ecological Psychoacoustics
• Lesson 1 We Hear Events, Not Sounds (p. 220)
• Hearing Speech Events (p. 222)
• Hearing Nonspeech Events (p. 224)
• Lesson 2 To Understand Information, Understand Events (p. 227)
• Information for Articulatory Events (p. 227)
• Information for Nonspeech Events (p. 231)
• Lesson 3 Audition Serves a Multimodal Brain (p. 233)
• Multimodal Speech Perception (p. 233)
• Multimodal Nonspeech Perception (p. 238)
• Conclusions (p. 241)
• References (p. 242)
• 10 Interacting Perceptual Dimensions
• The Interaction of Auditory Dimensions (p. 250)
• Dimensional Interaction (p. 250)
• Dimensional Interaction Summary (p. 255)
• Multisensory Interaction (p. 255)
• A Unified Spatial Representation (p. 256)
• Behavioral Evidence of Multi-Sensory Interaction (p. 257)
• Invariant Environment Cues (p. 259)
• Physiological Evidence of Multisensory Interaction (p. 260)
• Conclusion (p. 263)
• References (p. 264)
• 11 Pitch and Pitch Structures
• Introduction (p. 271)
• Perceiving Single Tones (p. 273)
• The Basics of Pitch (p. 273)
• Basic Pitch Perception (p. 274)
• Psychological Scales of Pitch (p. 276)
• Summary (p. 281)
• Perceiving Pitch Structures (p. 281)
• Organization of Pitch in Space (p. 282)
• Organization of Pitch in Time (p. 296)
• Organization of Pitch in Space and Time (p. 302)
• Summary and Final Thoughts (p. 304)
• Acknowledgments (p. 306)
• References (p. 306)
• 12 Loudness
• Methods for Measuring Loudness (p. 318)
• Paired Comparisons (p. 318)
• Magnitude Scaling (p. 319)
• Category Rating (p. 320)
• Loudness Matching and Cross-Modality Matching (p. 321)
• Bias in Loudness Measurement (p. 322)
• Physiological Correlates of Loudness (p. 323)
• Ecological Loudness: Some Areas of Inquiry (p. 327)
• Loudness Constancy (p. 327)
• The Loudness of Dynamically Changing Sounds (p. 330)
• Sound Source Segregation and Selective Attention (p. 334)
• The Ecological Significance of the Acoustic Reflex (p. 336)
• Uncomfortably Loud Sounds (p. 338)
• Conclusions (p. 340)
• References (p. 341)