Search

Research on various languages shows that dynamic approaches to vowel acoustics – in particular Vowel-Inherent Spectral Change (VISC) – can play a vital role in characterising and classifying monophthongal vowels compared with a static model. This study's aim was to investigate whether dynamic cues also allow for better description and classification of the Hijazi Arabic (HA) vowel system, a phonological system based on both temporal and spectral distinctions. Along with static and dynamic F1 and F2 patterns, we evaluated the extent to which vowel duration, F0, and F3 contribute to increased/decreased discriminability among vowels. Data were collected from 20 native HA speakers (10 females and 10 males) producing eight HA monophthongal vowels in a word list with varied consonantal contexts. Results showed that dynamic cues provide further insights regarding HA vowels that are not normally gleaned from static measures alone. Using discriminant analysis, the dynamic cues (particularly the seven-point model) had relatively higher classification rates, and vowel duration was found to play a significant role as an additional cue. Our results are in line with dynamic approaches and highlight the importance of looking beyond static cues and beyond the first two formants for further insights into the description and classification of vowel systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural listening involves a constant deployment of small head movement. Spatial listening is facilitated by head movements, especially when resolving front-back confusions, an otherwise common issue during sound localization under head-still conditions. The present study investigated which acoustic cues are utilized by human listeners to localize sounds using small head movements (below ±10° around the center). Seven normal-hearing subjects participated in a sound localization experiment in a virtual reality environment. Four acoustic cue stimulus conditions were presented (full spectrum, flattened spectrum, frozen spectrum, free-field) under threemovement conditions (nomovement, head rotations over the yaw axis and over the pitch axis). Localization performance was assessed using three metrics: lateral and polar precision error and front-back confusion rate. Analysis through mixed-effects models showed that even small yaw rotations provide a remarkable decrease in front-back confusion rate, whereas pitch rotations did not show much of an effect. Furthermore, MSS cues improved localization performance even in the presence of dITD cues. However, performance was similar between stimuli with and without dMSS cues. This indicates that human listeners utilize the MSS cues before the head moves, but do not rely on dMSS cues to localize sounds when utilizing small headmovements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural listening involves a constant deployment of small head movement. Spatial listening is facilitated by head movements, especially when resolving front-back confusions, an otherwise common issue during sound localization under head-still conditions. The present study investigated which acoustic cues are utilized by human listeners to localize sounds using small head movements (below ±10° around the center). Seven normal-hearing subjects participated in a sound localization experiment in a virtual reality environment. Four acoustic cue stimulus conditions were presented (full spectrum, flattened spectrum, frozen spectrum, free-field) under three movement conditions (no movement, head rotations over the yaw axis and over the pitch axis). Localization performance was assessed using three metrics: lateral and polar precision error and front-back confusion rate. Analysis through mixed-effects models showed that even small yaw rotations provide a remarkable decrease in front-back confusion rate, whereas pitch rotations did not show much of an effect. Furthermore, MSS cues improved localization performance even in the presence of dITD cues. However, performance was similar between stimuli with and without dMSS cues. This indicates that human listeners utilize the MSS cues before the head moves, but do not rely on dMSS cues to localize sounds when utilizing small head movements.

Over the decades, Bayesian statistical inference has become a staple technique for modelling human multisensory perception. Many studies have successfully shown how sensory and prior information can be combined to optimally interpret our environment. Because of the multiple sound localisation cues available in the binaural signal, sound localisation models based on Bayesian inference are a promising way of explaining behavioural human data. An interesting aspect is the consideration of dynamic localisation cues obtained through self-motion. Here we provide a review of the recent developments in modelling dynamic sound localisation with a particular focus on Bayesian inference. Further, we describe a theoretical Bayesian framework capable to model dynamic and active listening situations in humans in a static auditory environment. In order to demonstrate its potential in future implementations, we provide results from two examples of simplified versions of that framework.

Copyright of European Review of Applied Psychology is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Studies investigating the effects of observing a gaze shift in another person often apply static images of a person with an averted gaze, while measuring response times to a peripheral target. Static images, however, are unlike how we normally perceive gaze shifts of others. Moreover, response times might only reveal the effects of a cue on covert attention and might fail to uncover cueing effects on overt attention or response preparation. We therefore extended the standard paradigm and measured cueing effects formore realistic, dynamic cues (video clips),while comparing response times, saccade direction errors and saccade trajectories. Three cues were compared: A social cue, consisting of a eye-gaze shift, and two socially less relevant cues, consisting of a head tilting movement and a person walking past. Similar results were found for the two centrally presented cues (eye-gaze shift and head tilting) on all three response measures, suggesting that cueing is unaffected by the social status of the cue. Interestingly, the cue showing a person walking past showed a dissociation in the direction of the effects on response times on the one hand, and saccade direction errors and latencies on the other hand, suggesting the involvement of two types of (endogenous and exogenous) attention or a distinction between attention and sacadic response preparation. Our results suggest that by using dynamic cues and multiple response measures, properties of cueing can be revealed that would not be found otherwise.

Research has shown that smokers have an attentional bias for pictorial smoking cues. The objective of the present study was to examine whether smokers also have an attentional bias for dynamic smoking cues in contemporary movies and therefore fixate more quickly, more often and for longer periods of time on dynamic smoking cues than non-smokers. By drawing upon established methods for assessing attentional biases for pictorial cues, we aimed to develop a new method for assessing attentional biases for dynamic smoking cues. We examined smokers’ and non-smokers’ eye movements while watching a movie clip by using eye-tracking technology. The sample consisted of 16 smoking and 17 non-smoking university students. Our results confirm the results of traditional pictorial attentional bias research. Smokers initially directed their gaze more quickly towards smoking-related cues (p = 0.01), focusing on them more often (p = 0.05) and for a longer duration (p = 0.01) compared with non-smokers. Thus, smoking cues in movies directly affect the attention of smokers. These findings indicate that the effects of dynamic smoking cues, in addition to other environmental smoking cues, need to be taken into account in smoking cessation therapies in order to increase successful smoking cessation and to prevent relapses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three experiments examined the ability of birds to discriminate between the actions of walking forwards and backwards as demonstrated by video clips of a human walking a dog. Experiment 1 revealed that budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates) could discriminate between these actions when the demonstrators moved consistently from left to right. Test trials then revealed that the discrimination transferred, without additional training, to clips of the demonstrators moving from right to left. Experiment 2 replicated the findings from Experiment I except that the demonstrators walked as if on a treadmill in the center of the display screen. The results from the first 2 experiments were replicated with pigeons in Experiment 3. The results cannot be explained if it is assumed that animals rely on Static cues, such as those derived from individual postures, in order to discriminate between the actions of another animal. Instead, this type of discrimination appears to be controlled by dynamic cues derived from changes in the posture of the demonstrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about a sound source's location in the front/back dimension is present in the relation between head rotation and the resulting changes in interaural time- or level-difference cues. The use of such dynamic cues for localization requires the auditory system to have access to an accurate representation of the orientation and motion of the head in space. We measured, in active and passive rotation conditions, and as a function of head-rotation angle and velocity, normally hearing human listeners' ability to localize front and rear sources of a low-frequency (0.5–1 kHz) noise band that was not accurately localizable in the absence of head motion. Targets were presented while the head was in motion at velocities of 50–400°/s (active neck rotation) or 25–100°/s (whole-body passive rotation), and were gated on and off as the head passed through a variable-width spatial window. Accuracy increased as window width was increased, which provided access to larger interaural cue changes, but decreased as head-turn velocity increased, which reduced the duration of the stimuli. For both active and passive rotation, these effects were almost exactly reciprocal, such that performance was related primarily to the duration of the stimulus, with ∼100 ms duration required for 75% correct front/back discrimination regardless of the cue-change magnitude or mode of rotation. The efficacy of the dynamic auditory cues in the passive rotation condition suggests that vestibular input is sufficient to inform the auditory system about head motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]