Perception of the Direction of Frequency Sweeps in Moving Ripple Noise Stimuli

  • Susan L. Denham
Conference paper

4. Conclusion

Subjects can differentiate between upward and downward moving spectral envelope patterns within a circumscribed range of spectral profiles and drift rates. The range for accurate performance appears to be consistent with spectral resolution in the periphery and the receptive field characteristics found in auditory cortex. The presence of multiple peaks in the spectral profile helps discrimination at low sweep rates, while at higher rates discrimination is better if only one moving peak is present. In conclusion, these experiments have shown that subjects are sensitive to the spectrotemporal envelope of stimuli in the absence of meaningful fine structure, within the range of spectral peak densities and sweep rates characteristic of speech.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005

Authors and Affiliations

  • Susan L. Denham
    • 1
  1. 1.Plymouth Institute of Theoretical and Computational NeuroscienceUniversity of PlymouthPlymouthUK

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