Abstract
It has been suggested recently that there are two fundamentally distinct types of auditory sequence perception in man: (1) hofistic pattern recognition (HPR), operating for component item durations from a few milliseconds up to about 200 msec; and (2) direct identification of components and their order (Direct ICO), requiring verbal encoding of names for constituent sounds and requiring item durations roughly 200 msec and above for extended sequences. The present study, using only the very first judgments from 795 untrained participants presented with recycled three-item sequences, provided data consistent with this dichotomous formulation. In addition, it appeared that separate bursts of a noise band generated on-line were treated as different components in HPR and could not be used for sequence matching; “frozen” noise bursts having identical microstructure were treated as the same component and permitted HPR. On-fine noise bursts permitted Direct ICO, with naming based on long-term spectral characteristics of noise.
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Warren, R. M. Temporal resolution of auditory events. In D. A. Norman (Chair)Perception of temporal order in hearing: OM pattern recognition problems in a new guise. Symposium presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, September 1972.
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The research was supported by grants from National Science Foundation (GB-36986X and BMS73-06787), National Institutes of Health (HD07855), and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Graduate School to the first author and by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to the second author.
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Warren, B.M., Ackroff, J.M. Two types of auditory sequence perception. Perception & Psychophysics 20, 387–394 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03199420
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03199420