Auditory Attention [click left for another topic]
In ordinary settings, one of the main problems listeners face is that they hear many competing sound sources, not all of which they can afford to attend. Our studies support the idea, long advanced in visual attention studies, that subjects can use different features (e.g., acoustic features such as location, pitch, timbre, and the like) to focus attention and mediate competition for neural resources. We also believe that attention operates to select out one auditory object at a time. Our work suggests that (as in vision) a precarious balance between the top-down, volitional feature-based selection directed by the listener and the bottom-up, inherent salience of the competing objects in the auditory scene ultimately determines what object a listener attends.
Best, V, E Ozmeral, N Kopco, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2008). “Object continuity enhances selective auditory attention,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press.
Shinn-Cunningham, B and V Best (2008). “Selective attention in normal and impaired hearing,” Trends in Amplification [invited submission for special issue on Auditory Scene Analysis], in press.
Shinn-Cunningham, BG (2008). "Object-based auditory and visual attention," Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 182-186.
Ihlefeld, A and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2008). “Spatial release from energetic and informational masking in a selective speech identification task,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 4369-4379.
Ihlefeld, A and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2008). “Spatial release from energetic and informational masking in a divided speech identification task,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 4380-4392.
Best, V, EJ Ozmeral, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2007). “Visually guided attention enhances target identification in a complex auditory scene,” Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 8(2), 294-304.
Best, V, A Ihlefeld, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2007). “Divided listening in auditory displays,” Proceedings of the International Congress on Acoustics, Madrid, Spain, 2-7 September 2007.
Ihlefeld, A, S Chu and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2007). “Attending to space or intensity modulates spatial release from informational masking,” Proceedings of the DAGA (German Acoustical Society), Stuttgart, Germany, 19-22 March 2007.
Ahveninen, J, IP Jaaskelainen, T Raij, G Bonmassar, S Devore, MHamalainen, S Levanen, FH Lin, M Sams, BG Shinn-Cunningham, T Witzel, JW Belliveau (2006). “Task-modulated 'what' and 'where' pathways in human auditory cortex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 103, 14608-14613.
V Best, FJ Gallun, A Ihlefeld, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2006). "The influence of spatial separation on divided listening," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America," 120, 1506-1516.
Best, V, E Ozmeral, F Gallun, K Sen, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2005). “Spatial unmasking of birdsong in human listeners: Energetic and informational factors” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118(6), 3766-3773.
Durlach, NI, CR Mason, FJ Gallun, BG Shinn-Cunningham, HS Colburn, and G Kidd, Jr. (2005). “Informational masking for simultaneous nonspeech stimuli: Psychometric functions for fixed and randomly mixed maskers,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 118(4), 2482-2497.
Best, V, A Ihlefeld, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2005). “The effect of auditory spatial layout in a divided attention task,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, 6-9 July 2005.
Shinn-Cunningham, BG and A Ihlefeld (2004). “Selective and divided attention: Extracting information from simultaneous sound sources,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, 6-9 July 2004.
Durlach, NI, CR Mason, BG Shinn-Cunningham, TL Arbogast, HS Colburn, and G Kidd, Jr. (2003). "Informational masking: Counteracting the effects of stimulus uncertainty by decreasing target-masker similarity," J Acoust Soc Am, 114, 368-379.
Durlach, NI, CR Mason, G Kidd, Jr., TL Arbogast, HS Colburn, and BG Shinn-Cunningham (2003). "Note on informational masking," J Acoust Soc Am, 113, 2984-2987.