Perceived Order of Tone Pulses
Robert W. Peters · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1967
Order of a series of tone pulses is perceived differently from actual order when frequency of the pulses vary. If the center pulse differs in frequency from the other pulses in a train, the center pulse is heard as either first or last in the series. Because this was observed when the frequency of a center pulse was adjusted for trains, the effect may have been a function of repetition. For this study, 12 subjects judged the order of pulses in trains presented in random order. There were three pulses in each train each of 20 msec duration with pulse intervals of 50 msec. The first and third pulses were 1000 Hz in all cases; the center pulse was varied in discrete steps from 400 to 2000 Hz. The data indicated that perceived order was controlled by frequency of the center pulse. For center pulse frequencies below 600 and above 1600 Hz the observers judged that the center pulse followed the other two pulses. [This work was supported by the U. S. Air Force under Contract No. AF 33 (615)-1181.]