Causal inference in environmental sound recognition
Sound is caused by physical events in the world. Do humans infer these causes when recognizing sound sources? We tested whether the recognition of common environmental sounds depends on the inference of a basic physical variable - the source intensity (i.e., the power that produces a sound). A sourc...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier BV
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138284 |
| _version_ | 1826193671543848960 |
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| author | Traer, James Norman-Haignere, Sam V McDermott, Josh H |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Traer, James Norman-Haignere, Sam V McDermott, Josh H |
| author_sort | Traer, James |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Sound is caused by physical events in the world. Do humans infer these causes when recognizing sound sources? We tested whether the recognition of common environmental sounds depends on the inference of a basic physical variable - the source intensity (i.e., the power that produces a sound). A source's intensity can be inferred from the intensity it produces at the ear and its distance, which is normally conveyed by reverberation. Listeners could thus use intensity at the ear and reverberation to constrain recognition by inferring the underlying source intensity. Alternatively, listeners might separate these acoustic cues from their representation of a sound's identity in the interest of invariant recognition. We compared these two hypotheses by measuring recognition accuracy for sounds with typically low or high source intensity (e.g., pepper grinders vs. trucks) that were presented across a range of intensities at the ear or with reverberation cues to distance. The recognition of low-intensity sources (e.g., pepper grinders) was impaired by high presentation intensities or reverberation that conveyed distance, either of which imply high source intensity. Neither effect occurred for high-intensity sources. The results suggest that listeners implicitly use the intensity at the ear along with distance cues to infer a source's power and constrain its identity. The recognition of real-world sounds thus appears to depend upon the inference of their physical generative parameters, even generative parameters whose cues might otherwise be separated from the representation of a sound's identity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:42:51Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/138284 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:42:51Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Elsevier BV |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1382842023-12-06T21:36:36Z Causal inference in environmental sound recognition Traer, James Norman-Haignere, Sam V McDermott, Josh H Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Sound is caused by physical events in the world. Do humans infer these causes when recognizing sound sources? We tested whether the recognition of common environmental sounds depends on the inference of a basic physical variable - the source intensity (i.e., the power that produces a sound). A source's intensity can be inferred from the intensity it produces at the ear and its distance, which is normally conveyed by reverberation. Listeners could thus use intensity at the ear and reverberation to constrain recognition by inferring the underlying source intensity. Alternatively, listeners might separate these acoustic cues from their representation of a sound's identity in the interest of invariant recognition. We compared these two hypotheses by measuring recognition accuracy for sounds with typically low or high source intensity (e.g., pepper grinders vs. trucks) that were presented across a range of intensities at the ear or with reverberation cues to distance. The recognition of low-intensity sources (e.g., pepper grinders) was impaired by high presentation intensities or reverberation that conveyed distance, either of which imply high source intensity. Neither effect occurred for high-intensity sources. The results suggest that listeners implicitly use the intensity at the ear along with distance cues to infer a source's power and constrain its identity. The recognition of real-world sounds thus appears to depend upon the inference of their physical generative parameters, even generative parameters whose cues might otherwise be separated from the representation of a sound's identity. 2021-12-01T18:39:39Z 2021-12-01T18:39:39Z 2021 2021-12-01T18:36:46Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138284 Traer, James, Norman-Haignere, Sam V and McDermott, Josh H. 2021. "Causal inference in environmental sound recognition." Cognition, 214. en 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2021.104627 Cognition Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier BV Other repository |
| spellingShingle | Traer, James Norman-Haignere, Sam V McDermott, Josh H Causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| title | Causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| title_full | Causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| title_fullStr | Causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| title_full_unstemmed | Causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| title_short | Causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| title_sort | causal inference in environmental sound recognition |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138284 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT traerjames causalinferenceinenvironmentalsoundrecognition AT normanhaigneresamv causalinferenceinenvironmentalsoundrecognition AT mcdermottjoshh causalinferenceinenvironmentalsoundrecognition |