Enhancing a tone by shifting its frequency or intensity.

Mayalen Erviti, Catherine Semal, Laurent Demany
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2011-06-01; 129(6): 3837-3845
DOI: 10.1121/1.3589257

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1. J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Jun;129(6):3837-45. doi: 10.1121/1.3589257.

Enhancing a tone by shifting its frequency or intensity.

Erviti M(1), Semal C, Demany L.

Author information:
(1)Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine (UMR CNRS
5287), BP 63, Université de Bordeaux, 146 rue Leo Saignat, F-33076 Bordeaux,
France.

When a test sound consisting of pure tones with equal intensities is preceded by
a precursor sound identical to the test sound except for a reduction in the
intensity of one tone, an auditory « enhancement » phenomenon occurs: In the test
sound, the tone which was previously softer stands out perceptually. Here,
enhancement was investigated using inharmonic sounds made up of five pure tones
well resolved in the auditory periphery. It was found that enhancement can be
elicited not only by increases in intensity but also by shifts in frequency. In
both cases, when the precursor and test sounds are separated by a 500-ms delay,
inserting a burst of pink noise during the delay has little effect on
enhancement. Presenting the precursor and test sounds to opposite ears rather
than to the same ear significantly reduces the enhancement resulting from
increases in intensity, but not the enhancement resulting from shifts in
frequency. This difference suggests that the mechanisms of enhancement are not
identical for the two types of change. For frequency shifts, enhancement may be
partly based on the existence of automatic « frequency-shift detectors » [Demany
and Ramos, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117, 833-841 (2005)].

© 2011 Acoustical Society of America

DOI: 10.1121/1.3589257
PMID: 21682407 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Auteurs Bordeaux Neurocampus