Top-down gain control in the auditory system: evidence from identification and discrimination experiments.
Percept Psychophys
; 64(4): 598-615, 2002 May.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-12132761
ABSTRACT
The influence of intensity range in auditory identification and intensity discrimination experiments is well documented and is usually attributed to nonsensory factors. Recent studies, however, have suggested that the stimulus range effect might be sensory in origin. To test this notion, in one set of experiments, we had listeners identify the individual tones in a set. One baseline condition consisted of identifying four 1-kHz, low-intensity tones; the other consisted of identifying four 1-kHz, high-intensity tones. In the experimental conditions, these baseline tone sets were augmented by adding a fifth tone at either 1 or 5 kHz. Added 5-kHz tones had little effect on identification accuracy for the four baseline tones. When an added 1-kHz tone differed substantially in intensity from the four baseline tones, it adversely affected performance, with the addition of a high-intensity tone to a set of low-intensity tones having a more deleterious effect than the addition of a low-intensity tone to a set of high-intensity tones. These and further results, obtained in an exploration of this asymmetrical range effect in a third identification experiment and in two intensity-discrimination experiments, were consistent with the notion of a nonlinear amplifier under top-down control whose functions include protection against sensory overload from loud sounds. The identification data were well described by a signal-detection model using equal-variance Laplace distributions instead of the usual Gaussian distributions.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Discriminação da Altura Tonal
/
Percepção Sonora
Tipo de estudo:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2002
Tipo de documento:
Article