Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Auditory Gist Perception: An Alternative to Attentional Selection of Auditory Streams?

  • Conference paper
Attention in Cognitive Systems. Theories and Systems from an Interdisciplinary Viewpoint (WAPCV 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4840))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The idea that the gist of a visual scene is perceived before attention is focused on the details of a particular object is becoming increasingly popular. In the auditory system, on the other hand, it is typically assumed that the sensory signal is first broken down into streams and then attention is applied to select one of the streams. We consider evidence for an alternative: that, in close analogy with the visual system, the gist of an auditory scene is perceived and only afterwards attention is paid to relevant constituents. We find that much experimental evidence is consistent with such a proposal, and we suggest some possibilities for gist representations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Driver, J.: A selective review of selective attention research from the past century. Brit. J. Psychol. 92, 53–78 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Biederman, I.: Visual object recognition. In: Kosslyn, S.M., Osherson, D.N. (eds.) An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Visual Cognition, 2nd edn., vol. 2, pp. 121–165. MIT Press, Cambridge (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Treisman, A.M., Gelade, G.: Feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychol. 12(1), 97–136 (1980)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Bregman, A.S.: Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Wolfe, J.M.: Visual memory: What do you know about what you saw? Curr. Biol. 8(9), 303–304 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Potter, M.C.: Short-term conceptual memory for pictures. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. L. 2(5), 509–522 (1976)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Simons, D.J.: Current approaches to change blindness. Vis. Cogn. 7(1-3), 1–15 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Ramachandran, V.S.: Perception of shape from shading. Nature 331(6152), 163–166 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Enns, J.T., Rensink, R.A.: Influence of scene-based properties on visual-search. Science 247(4943), 721–723 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Liberman, A.M., Isenberg, D., Rakerd, B.: Duplex perception of cues for stop consonants: Evidence for a phonetic mode. Percept. Psychophys. 30, 133–143 (1981)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Jusczyk, P.W., Luce, P.A.: Speech perception and spoken word recognition: Past and present. Ear and Hearing 23(1), 2–40 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Slaney, M.: A critique of pure audition. In: Rosenthal, D., Okuno, H. (eds.) Proc. 1st Workshop CASA, IJCAI, Montreal, Canada, pp. 13–18 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Navon, D.: Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychol. 9, 353–383 (1977)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Rensink, R.A.: The dynamic representation of scenes. Vis. Cogn. 7(1-3), 17–42 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hochstein, S., Ahissar, M.: View from the top: Hierarchies and reverse hierarchies in the visual system. Neuron 36(5), 791–804 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Nelken, I., Ahissar, M.: High-level and low-level processing in the auditory system: The role of primary auditory cortex. In: Divenyi, P., Greenberg, S., Meyer, G. (eds.) Dynamics of speech production and perception. NATO Science Series, I: Life and Behavioural Sciences, vol. 374, pp. 343–353. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Cusack, R., Deeks, J., Aikman, G., Carlyon, R.P.: Effects of location, frequency region, and time course of selective attention on auditory scene analysis. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 30(4), 643–656 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Li, F.F., VanRullen, R., Koch, C., Perona, P.: Rapid natural scene categorization in the near absence of attention. P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99(14), 9596–9601 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Oliva, A.: Gist of the scene. In: Itti, L., Rees, G., Tsotsos, J. (eds.) Neurobiology of Attention, pp. 251–256. Academic Press, Elsevier (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Evans, K.K., Treisman, A.: Perception of objects in natural scenes: Is it really attention free? J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 31(6), 1476–1492 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Schyns, P.G., Oliva, A.: From blobs to boundary edges: evidence for time-scale-dependent and spatial-scale-dependent scene recognition. Psychol. Sci. 5(4), 195–200 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Rousselet, G.A., Joubert, O.R., Fabre-Thorpe, M.: How long to get to the “gist” of real-world natural scenes? Vis. Cogn. 12(6), 852–877 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Bransford, J.D., Franks, J.J.: The abstraction of linguistic ideas: A review. Acta Acust. Acust. 1(2-3), 211–249 (1972)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Roediger, H.L., McDermott, K.B.: Creating false memories: remembering words not presented in lists. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. 21(4), 803–814 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Koutstaal, W., Schacter, D.L.: Gist-based false recognition of pictures in older and younger adults. J. Mem. Lang. 37(4), 555–583 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Reyna, V.F., Brainerd, C.J.: Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learn. Individ. Differ. 7(1), 1–75 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Crick, F., Koch, C.: A framework for consciousness. Nat. Neurosci. 6(2), 119–126 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Wolfe, J.M.: Inattentional amnesia. In: Coltheart, V. (ed.) Fleeting memories: Cognition of brief visual stimuli, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Kahneman, D., Treisman, A., Gibbs, B.J.: The reviewing of object files: object-specific integration of information. Cognitive Psychol. 24(2), 175–219 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Johnston, J.C., McLelland, J.L.: Perception of letters in words: Seek not and ye shall find. Science 184, 1192–1194 (1974)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Kimchi, R.: Primacy of wholistic processing and global/local paradigm: A critical review. Psychol. Bull. 112(1), 24–38 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Oliva, A., Schyns, P.G.: Coarse blobs or fine edges? Evidence that information diagnosticity changes the perception of complex visual stimuli. Cognitive Psychol. 34(1), 72–107 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Levin, D.T., Takarae, Y., Miner, A.G., Keil, F.: Efficient visual search by category: Specifying the features that mark the difference between artifacts and animals in preattentive vision. Percept. Psychophys. 63(4), 676–697 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Bar, M., Kassam, K.S., Ghuman, A.S., Boshyan, J., Schmidt, A.M., Dale, A.M., Hamalainen, M.S., Marinkovic, K., Schacter, D.L., Rosen, B.R., Halgren, E.: Top-down facilitation of visual recognition. P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103(2), 449–454 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Rensink, R.A., O’Regan, J.K., Clark, J.J.: To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychol. Sci. 8(5), 368–373 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Mack, A., Rock, I.: Inattentional blindness. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Palmer, S.E.: Vision science - photons to phenomenology. MIT Press, Cambridge MA (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Browman, C.P., Goldstein, L.: Dynamics and articulatory phonology. In: van Gelder, T., Port, R.F. (eds.) Mind as Motion, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Moore, B.C.J.: An introduction to the psychology of hearing, 5th edn. Academic Press, London (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Broadbent, D.E.: A note on binaural fusion. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 7, 46–47 (1955)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Lindblom, B., Brownlee, S., Davis, B., Moon, S.J.: Speech transforms. Speech Commun. 11(4-5), 357–368 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Green, K.P., Tomiak, G.R., Kuhl, P.K.: The encoding of rate and talker information during phonetic perception. Percept. Psychophys. 59(5), 675–692 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Carlyon, R.P., Cusack, R., Foxton, J.M., Robertson, I.H.: Effects of attention and unilateral neglect on auditory stream segregation. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 27(1), 115–127 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Lippmann, R.P.: Speech recognition by machines and humans. Speech Commun. 22(1), 1–15 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Shannon, R.V., Zeng, F.-G., Kamath, V., Wygonski, J., Ekelid, M.: Speech recognition with primarily temporal cues. Science 270, 303–304 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Saberi, K., Perrott, D.R.: Cognitive restoration of reversed speech. Nature 398(6730), 760 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Warren, R.M.: Perceptual restoration of missing speech sounds. Science 167, 393–395 (1970)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Bailey, P.J., Dorman, M.F., Summerfield, A.Q.: Identification of sine-wave analogs of CV syllables in speech and non-speech modes. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 61(S(A) (1977)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Lecumberri, M.L.G., Cooke, M.P.: Effect of masker type on native and non-native consonant perception in noise. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 2445–2454 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Robinson, K., Patterson, R.D.: The stimulus-duration required to identify vowels, their octave, and their pitch chroma. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98(4), 1858–1865 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Robinson, K., Patterson, R.D.: The duration required to identify the instrument, the octave, or the pitch chroma of a musical note. Music Perception 13(1), 1–15 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Moore, B.C.J., Gockel, H.: Factors influencing sequential stream segregation. Acta Acust. Acust. 88(3), 320–333 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  53. Warren, R.M., Obusek, C.J., Farmer, R.M., Warren, R.P.: Auditory sequence: Confusion of patterns other than speech or music. Science 164(3879), 586 (1969)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Green, D.M.: Temporal acuity as a function of frequency. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 54, 373–379 (1973)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Jacobsen, T., Schroger, E., Alter, K.: Pre-attentive perception of vowel phonemes from variable speech stimuli. Psychophysiology 41(4), 654–659 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Tervaniemi, M., Winkler, I., Naatanen, R.: Pre-attentive categorization of sounds by timbre as revealed by event-related potentials. Neuroreport 8(11), 2571–2574 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Murray, M.M., Camen, C., Andino, S.L.G., Bovet, P., Clarke, S.: Rapid brain discrimination of sounds of objects. J. Neurosci. 26(4), 1293–1302 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Alain, C., Reinke, K., He, Y., Wang, C.H., Lobaugh, N.: Hearing two things at once: Neurophysiological indices of speech segregation and identification. J. Cognitive Neurosci. 17(5), 811–818 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Alain, C., Izenberg, A.: Effects of attentional load on auditory scene analysis. J. Cognitive Neurosci. 15(7), 1063–1073 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Sussman, E.S.: Integration and segregation in auditory scene analysis. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117(3), 1285–1298 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Darwin, C.J.: Auditory grouping. Trends Cogn. Sci. 1(9), 327–333 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. McKeown, J.D., Patterson, R.D.: The time-course of auditory segregation: Concurrent vowels that vary in duration. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98(4), 1866–1877 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Kewley-Port, D.: Vowel formant discrimination II: Effects of stimulus uncertainty, consonantal context, and training. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110(4), 2141–2155 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Lively, S.E., Pisoni, D.B., Yamada, R.A., Tohkura, Y., Yamada, T.: Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/. III. Long-term retention of new phonetic categories. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96(4), 2076–2087 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Cherry, E.C.: Some experiments on the recognition of speech with one and with two ears. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 25, 975–979 (1953)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Brochard, R., Drake, C., Botte, M.C., McAdams, S.: Perceptual organization of complex auditory sequences: Effect of number of simultaneous subsequences and frequency separation. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 25(6), 1742–1759 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Vitevitch, M.S.: Change deafness: The inability to detect changes between two voices. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 29(2), 333–342 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Mackay, D.: Aspects of the theory of comprehension, memory and attention. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 25, 22–40 (1973)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Banks, W.P., Roberts, D., Ciranni, M.: Negative priming in auditory attention. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 21(6), 1354–1361 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Rensink, R.A., Enns, J.T.: Preemption effects in visual search: Evidence for low-level grouping. Psychol. Rev. 102(1), 101–130 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Wolfe, J.M., Bennett, S.C.: Preattentive object files: Shapeless bundles of basic features. Vision Res. 37(1), 25–43 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Oliva, A., Torralba, A.: Building the gist of a scene: the role of global image features in recognition. In: Martinez-Conde, Macknik, Martinez, Alonso, Tze (eds.) Progress in Brain Research, vol. 155, pp. 23–36. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  73. Siagian, C., Itti, L.: Rapid biologically-inspired scene classification using features shared with visual attention. IEEE T. Patt. Anal. Mach. Intell. 29(2), 300–312 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Cooke, M.: A glimpsing model of speech perception in noise. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119(3), 1562–1573 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. Harding, S.M.: Multi-resolution auditory scene analysis for speech perception: experimental evidence and a model. PhD thesis, Keele University (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  76. Mesgarani, N., Slaney, M., Shamma, S.A.: Discrimination of speech from nonspeech based on multiscale spectro-temporal modulations. IEEE T. Audi. Speech. Lang. P. 14(3), 920–930 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Itti, L., Koch, C.: Computational modelling of visual attention. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2(3), 194–203 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Torralba, A.: Modeling global scene factors in attention. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 20(7), 1407–1418 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Kayser, C., Petkov, C.I., Lippert, M., Logothetis, N.K.: Mechanisms for allocating auditory attention: An auditory saliency map. Curr. Biol. 15(21), 1943–1947 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  80. Cusack, R., Carlyon, R.P.: Perceptual asymmetries in audition. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. P. 29(3), 713–725 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  81. Fecteau, J.H., Munoz, D.P.: Salience, relevance, and firing: a priority map for target selection. Trends Cogn. Sci. 10(8), 382–390 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. Laidler, J., Cooke, M., Lawrence, N.: Model-driven detection of clean speech patches in noise. In: Proc. Interspeech, Antwerp (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  83. Cooke, M.: Auditory organisation and speech perception: Arguments for an integrated computational theory. In: Ainsworth, W., Greenberg, S. (eds.) Proc. ESCA Workshop Aud. Basis Speech Perc., Keele, Worth Printing Ltd, pp. 186–193 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Speech and Hearing Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, 211 Portobello Street, Sheffield S1 4DP, UK

    Sue Harding & Martin Cooke

  2. Neurobiopsychologie Labor, Institut für Kognitionswissenschaft, Universität Osnabrück, Albrechtstraße 28, 49069 Osnabrück, Germany

    Peter König

Authors
  1. Sue Harding
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Martin Cooke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Peter König
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Joanneum Research, Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Computational Perception Group,, Institute of Digital Image Processing, Wastiangasse 6, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Lucas Paletta

  2. Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AIS), Autonomous Robots Department, Fraunhofer Institute, Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754, Sankt Augustin, Germany

    Erich Rome

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Harding, S., Cooke, M., König, P. (2007). Auditory Gist Perception: An Alternative to Attentional Selection of Auditory Streams?. In: Paletta, L., Rome, E. (eds) Attention in Cognitive Systems. Theories and Systems from an Interdisciplinary Viewpoint. WAPCV 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4840. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77343-6_26

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77343-6_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-77342-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-77343-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation