Psych 421 - Sensation & Perception

Study Notes

Chapter 11 - Auditory Pattern Perception

Rev. 11/98

I.    What is the role of top down processes in the perception of complex auditory patterns?

            A.    How might we separate complex sounds?

            B.    How can Gestalt principles apply to complex auditory patterns?

            C.    How might cognitive factors work?

II.    How do we perceive music?

            A.    Elements form complex structures

            B.    Range of frequencies

            C.    Role of pitch in western music?

            D.    Characteristics of the stimuli

                        1.    Pitch or tone height

                        2.    Octaves and tone chroma

                        3.    Octave generalization

            E.    What is meant by tonality?

                        1.    What is Krumhansl's Probe-Tone Technique and how is it used?

                        2.    How do sequences of tones get grouped? - consonance & dissonance

                        3.    What factors contribute to timbre?

                        4.    What contributes to the tonality of tone combinations?

            F.    How do Gestalt Laws of Grouping organize music?

            G.    Is there music constancy?

            H.    What illusions occur in music?

III.    How do we perceive speech?

            A.    What are the origins of human speech skills?

            B.    The Speech Stimulus

                        1.    Production of speech - Where and with what sounds?

                        2.    Physical characteristics of speech

                                    a)    What is the sound spectrogram?

                                    b)    What does it show?

                        3.    What variabilities can occur in speech production

            C.    Theories of Speech Perception

                        1.    General Models

                                    a)    Special Mechanisms Account

                                    b)    General Mechanisms Account

                                    c)    Motor theory of speech perception

                        2.    Special Mechanisms & Categorical Speech Perception - VOT, phonetic boundary

                        3.    What is Duplex Perception?

            D.    How do top-down processes influence speech perception?

                        1.    What factors influence speech perception?

                        2.    What is phonemic restoration and why do I care?

            E.    What 5 factors influence speech perception?

IV.    Intersections between Auditory and Visual Stimuli

            A.    What effect does background music have on movie scenes?

            B.    What does McGurk have to do with the interaction of facial information and auditory information?

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