Abstract
The auditory “rabbit,” or saltation, effect has previously been described as arising when a small number of auditory pulses (e.g., three) are presented at each of three positions in space, in rapid succession: P1,P1,P1,P2,P2,P2,P3,P3,P3, The pulses appear to be spread evenly in space, occupying positions not only at their physical places of origin, but also between those places. The present experiments measured direction and amount of spatial displacement effects quantitatively: Localization was measured for the next to last pulse in a sequence of three or four pulses presented rapidly at several spatial locations. Direction of displacement of this pulse was found to depend on its physical location relative to other pulses in the series. Magnitude of the displacement depended on the number of pulses in the series, and on the spatial location of the last pulse in the series relative to that of other pulses.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Blauert, J. (1983). Spatial hearing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bremer, C. D., Pittenger, J. B., Warren, R., & Jenkins, J. J. (1977). An illusion of auditory saltation similar to the cutaneous “rabbit.” American Journal of Psychology, 90, 645–655.
Geldard, F. A. (1975). Sensory saltation: Metastability in the perceptual world. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Geldard, F. A., & Sherrick, C. E. (1972). The cutaneous “rabbit”: A perceptual illusion. Science, 178, 178–179.
Thurlow, W. R., & Jack, C. E. t(1973). Certain determinants of the “ventriloquism effect.”. Perceptual and Motor skills, 36, 1171–1184.
Thurlow, W. R., Marten, A. E., & Bhatt, B. J. (1965). Localization after-effects with pulse-tone and pulse-pulse stimuli. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 37, 837–842.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thurlow, W.R., Oneson, R.E. On the trail of an auditory rabbit. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 22, 538–540 (1984). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333901
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333901