The Effect of Structured Contextual Tones on Psychophysical Frequency Discrimination.

Abstract

Six musically and six non-musically trained observers listened to patterns composed of 11 tones of short duration (40 ms). Using a same-different psychophysical procedure observers were asked to report frequency changes in the middle tone of the pattern. Three experimental conditions were formed: constant, random, and structured. In the constant condition observers listened to a single pattern. The observers in the structured and random conditions listened to 12 patterns, but the tonal patterns in the structured condition were arranged to reflect structural rules. Musical training made no difference, but magnitude of the frequency change was highly significant in discrimination performance. A non-parametric statistical analysis revealed a significant effect among the three conditions. It was demonstrated that a structured pattern of tones provided a knowledge source from which observers could effectively abstract information for frequency discrimination judgements. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 14, 1983
Accession Number
ADA135433

Entities

People

  • J. A. Ballas
  • J. H. Howard Jr.
  • K. B. Bennett

Organizations

  • The Catholic University of America

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Applied Psychology
  • Army
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Automated Speech Recognition
  • Biomedical Research
  • Feature Extraction
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Language
  • Military Research
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  • Pattern Recognition
  • Psychology
  • Recognition
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Systems Engineering
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Speech Processing/Speech Recognition.
  • Vision Science/Vision Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience.