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Can auditory objects be subitized?
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Roberts, Katherine L., Doherty, Nicola, Maylor, Elizabeth A. and Watson, Derrick G. (2019) Can auditory objects be subitized? Journal of Experimental Psychology : Human Perception and Performance, 45 (1). pp. 1-15. doi:10.1037/xhp0000578
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000578
Abstract
In vision, humans have the ability to mentally “tag” approximately 4 objects, allowing us to monitor, attend, and interact with them. As a consequence, we can rapidly and accurately enumerate up to 4 objects—a process known as subitizing. Here, we investigate whether a similar ability exists for tagging auditory stimuli and find that only 2 or 3 auditory stimuli can be enumerated with high accuracy. We assess whether this high accuracy indicates the existence of an auditory subitizing mechanism, and if it is influenced by factors known to influence visual subitizing. On the basis of accuracy, Experiments 1 and 2 reveal a potential auditory subitizing mechanism only when stimuli are spatially separated, as is the case for visual subitizing. Experiment 3 failed to show any evidence of auditory subitizing when objects were separated in time, rather than space. All three experiments provide only limited evidence for an age-related decline in auditory enumeration of small numbers of objects. This suggests that poor auditory tagging does not contribute significantly to older adults’ difficulties in multitalker conversations. We hypothesize that although auditory subitizing might occur, it is restricted to approximately 2 spatially separated objects due to the difficulty of parsing the auditory scene into its constituent parts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)
| Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology | |||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science > Psychology | |||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Auditory perception, Hearing, Aging | |||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Experimental Psychology : Human Perception and Performance | |||||||||
| Publisher: | American Psychological Association | |||||||||
| ISSN: | 0096-1523 | |||||||||
| Official Date: | 2019 | |||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 45 | |||||||||
| Number: | 1 | |||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 1-15 | |||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1037/xhp0000578 | |||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||
| Publisher Statement: | ©American Psychological Association, 2018. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000578 | |||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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