Toktam Sadralodabai
Robert D. Sorkin
DeMaris A. Montgomery
Dept. of Psychol., Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
Observers were presented with two successive 8-tone sequences; the task was to discriminate between the temporal patterns defined by the inter-tone intervals in each sequence (average inter-tone interval=50 ms, tone duration=25 ms, tone frequency=1000 or 2500 Hz). The observers had to indicate whether the two patterns on each trial were the same or different. A conditional-on-a-single-stimulus (COSS) technique [B. C. Berg, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 86, 1743--1746 (1991)] was used to evaluate the salience of each temporal position. The probability of responding DIFFERENT is computed given the magnitude of |t[sub 1,i]-t[sub 2,i]|, the absolute difference between the inter-tone intervals at each serial position (i=1,2,...,7). The temporal information in the first and last positions had the greatest influence on the observer's response. These results have implications for models of temporal pattern discrimination. [Work supported by AFOSR.]