Target voice probability influences enhancement in auditory selective attention

Auditory selective attention is thought to consist of two mechanisms: an enhancement mechanism that boosts the target signal, and a suppression mechanism that attenuates concurrent distracting signals. The current study explored the conditions necessary to observe enhancement of predictable auditory...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Attention, perception & psychophysics perception & psychophysics, 2023-04, Vol.85 (3), p.879-888
Main Authors: Daly, Heather R., Pitt, Mark A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Attention - physiology
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Coffeehouses
Cognitive Processes
Cognitive Psychology
Experiments
Feedback (Response)
Humans
Hypotheses
Phonology
Probability
Psychology
Syllables
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Auditory selective attention is thought to consist of two mechanisms: an enhancement mechanism that boosts the target signal, and a suppression mechanism that attenuates concurrent distracting signals. The current study explored the conditions necessary to observe enhancement of predictable auditory objects. Participants heard scenes consisting of three voices and a distracting noise. They were asked to find the gender singleton (target) and report whether it was saying even or odd numbers. One of the voices appeared as the high-probability target (70%) across trials. We expected responses to be faster when the high-probability target was in the scene, and results from Experiment 1 supported that prediction. However, this target enhancement effect was substantially weakened when a distracting noise was also in the scene, suggesting that the distractor captured attention and interfered with enhancement. Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that distractor predictability modulates target enhancement by varying the probability of the distractor. Although this hypothesis was not supported, the results of Experiment 1 were replicated. Findings support the existence of an easily disruptable enhancement mechanism that boosts the representation of highly probable target objects.
ISSN:1943-3921
1943-393X
DOI:10.3758/s13414-023-02683-8