Foreground-background decomposition in complex auditory scenes

Sabine Thomassen, Alexandra Bendixen
2019 Proceedings of the ICA congress  
Tremendous insight into auditory scene analysis has been gained by using two-tone sequences in auditory streaming paradigms as a simplified model scenario. Since natural acoustic scenes usually contain more than two potential sound sources, recent efforts strive towards studying scene analysis with more complex source configurations. Our current work along these lines focuses on the question of how perceptual foreground and background are decomposed. In a subjective-reporting procedure, we show
more » ... that listeners spontaneously report hearing more than one sound source in the perceptual foreground at once. The perceptual background is addressed by combining behavioral measures with electroencephalography (EEG). Our results suggest that integrated and segregated representations of the perceptual background are held in parallel. We discuss these findings in the light of current theories and outline some methodological challenges. To face one of these challenges, namely the considerable effort in training and instructions in subjective-reporting procedures, we merged a visual multistability procedure with an auditory multistable stimulus and collected eye-tracking data alongside the auditory reports. Results show a good agreement between reported auditory perception and visual foreground formation as determined via eye movements. We will discuss whether eye-tracking is an adequate en passant method for continuous measurements in auditory perception.
doi:10.18154/rwth-conv-239397 fatcat:33wwjgdkxbg6dkmhed2fcdaneq