Search

The way the visual system processes different scales of spatial information has been widely studied, highlighting the dominant role of global over local processing. Recent studies addressing how the auditory system deals with local–global temporal information suggest a comparable processing scheme, but little is known about how this organization is modulated by long-term musical training, in particular regarding musical sequences. Here, we investigate how non-musicians and expert musicians detect local and global pitch changes in short hierarchical tone sequences structured across temporally-segregated triplets made of musical intervals (local scale) forming a melodic contour (global scale) varying either in one direction (monotonic) or both (non-monotonic). Our data reveal a clearly distinct organization between both groups. Non-musicians show global advantage (enhanced performance to detect global over local modifications) and global-to-local interference effects (interference of global over local processing) only for monotonic sequences, while musicians exhibit the reversed pattern for non-monotonic sequences. These results suggest that the local–global processing scheme depends on the complexity of the melodic contour, and that long-term musical training induces a prominent perceptual reorganization that reshapes its initial global dominance to favour local information processing. This latter result supports the theory of “analytic” processing acquisition in musicians.

International audience; Sounds involving liquid sources are part of everyday life. They form a category of sounds easily identified by human listeners in different experimental studies. Unlike acoustic models that focus on bubble vibrations, real life instances of liquid sounds, such as sounds produced by liquids with or without other materials, are very diverse and include water drop sounds, noisy flows, and even solid vibrations. The process that allows listeners to group these different sounds in the same category remains unclear. This article presents a perceptual experiment based on a sorting task of liquid sounds from a household environment. It seeks to reveal the cognitive subcategories of this set of sounds. The clarification of this perceptive process led to the observation of similarities between the perception of liquid sounds and other categories of environmental sounds. Furthermore, the results provide a taxonomy of liquid sounds on which an acoustic analysis was performed that highlights the acoustical properties of the categories, including different rates of air bubble vibration.

International audience; It has been recently shown that loudness affects the perceptual representation of sounds. Following this idea, the present experiment examines whether recognition of everyday sounds is sensitive to study-to-test changes in sound pressure level. In addition, the experiment tests the hypothesis that the sound pressure level changes could hinder recognition more strongly when an encoding task focuses participants on sensory properties of the sounds (e.g., loudness) during the study phase. The study phase used three encoding tasks: sensory (participants rated loudness), semantic (participants categorized sounds in three categories), and control tasks. The test phase measured recognition scores and response times for a list of targets (sounds presented in the study phase) mixed with distractors, both presented at two different levels (L1: the level of the phase study; L2: 15 dB higher for half of the sounds, and 15 dB lower for the other half). Results reveal a significant effect of the level change on recognition scores; recognition is more accurate for sounds at L1. As predicted, recognition is weaker with the sensory encoding task, though the effect is not significant. Those results suggest that loudness is encoded together with semantic attributes in the memory representations of sounds.

International audience; This article reports on an interdisciplinary research project on movement sonification for sensori-motor learning. First, we describe different research fields which have contributed to movement sonification, from music technology including gesture-controlled sound synthesis, sonic interaction design, to research on sensori-motor learning with auditory-feedback. In particular, we propose to distinguish between sound-oriented tasks and movement-oriented tasks in experiments involving interactive sound feedback. We describe several research questions and recently published results on movement control, learning and perception. In particular, we studied the effect of the auditory feedback on movements considering several cases: from experiments on pointing and visuo-motor tracking to more complex tasks where interactive sound feedback can guide movements, or cases of sensory substitution where the auditory feedback can inform on object shapes. We also developed specific methodologies and technologies for designing the sonic feedback and movement sonification. We conclude with a discussion on key future research challenges in sensori-motor learning with movement sonification. We also point out toward promising applications such as rehabilitation, sport training or product design.

International audience; Imitative behaviors are widespread in humans, in particular whenever two persons communicate and interact. Several tokens of spoken languages (onomatopoeias, ideophones, and phonesthemes) also display different degrees of iconicity between the sound of a word and what it refers to. Thus, it probably comes at no surprise that human speakers use a lot of imi-tative vocalizations and gestures when they communicate about sounds, as sounds are notably difficult to describe. What is more surprising is that vocal imitations of non-vocal everyday sounds (e.g. the sound of a car passing by) are in practice very effective: listeners identify sounds better with vocal imitations than with verbal descriptions, despite the fact that vocal imitations are inaccurate reproductions of a sound created by a particular mechanical system (e.g. a car driving by) through a different system (the voice apparatus). The present study investigated the semantic representations evoked by vocal imitations of sounds by experimentally quantifying how well listeners could match sounds to category labels. The experiment used three different types of sounds: recordings of easily identifiable sounds (sounds of human actions and manufactured products), human vocal imitations, and computational " auditory sketches " (created by algorithmic computations). The results show that performance with the best vocal imitations was similar to the best auditory sketches for most categories of sounds, and even to the referent sounds themselves in some cases. More detailed analyses showed that the acoustic distance between a vocal imitation and a referent sound is not sufficient to account for such performance. Analyses suggested that instead of trying to reproduce the referent sound as accurately as vocally possible, vocal imitations focus on a few important features, which depend on each particular sound category. These results offer perspectives for understanding how human listeners store and access long-term sound representations, and sets the stage for the development of human-computer interfaces based on vocalizations.

The aim of the study presented here is to examine the effects of instructions on the perception of a sequence of interior car sounds in three different conditions. In each condition, participants listened to the same sound sequence, but the type of information given during the instruction phase, prior to the listening test, were different. In the first condition, a group of participants listens to the sound sequence without any external information except that the sound sequence was recorded inside a car. In the second condition, another group of participants was informed by a text of the successive events that are presented in the sound sequence. In the third condition, participants were informed first by the same text as in condition 2, and then by several pictures showing the different steps that could be heard from the beginning to the end of the sound sequence. Each of the three groups of subjects participated in three tasks: an identification task, a recognition task, and a semantic judgment task using twelve verbal attributes. We assessed how listeners’ judgments of the sound sequence were affected by external information. Results show that the effect is dependant on the type of verbal attribute and on the combination of external information. The verbal information, provided without visual information in condition 2, improves the identification and recognition scores, and thus influences positively the comprehension of the sound sequence and the feeling of immersion. The added visual information, in condition 3, does not change the identification scores, but affects judgements on the pleasantness scale. It appears that the perception of the sound sequence was influenced by visual cues. This study reveals that the format of instructions influences perceptive judgments of the sound sequence tested, but globally factors accounting for the participants’ perception across the three conditions are not modified.

This study of olfaction is particular, by the specificities of this sensorial modality. These particularities result in difficulties and a wide inter individual variability in the description of fragrances. We study the effect of two tasks (sorting and comparison of triplets) followed by verbalizations on the perception of similarities between stimuli, the number of generated characteristics and on the inter individual variability. The stimuli are nine ladies’ fragrances, the participants twenty-eight inexperienced women. The results show that the perception of similarities between perfumes is close, whatever the task may be, but the number of generated characteristics is more important with the sorting task and the inter individual variability more important with the triad task. We discuss the idea that it seems possible to limit the individual variability in odours description, controlling context effects.

International audience; Effect of loudness on the perceptual structure underlying a corpus of sounds is investigated bytwo experimental methods: pairwise comparisons and sorting. Both methods are applied to a corpus of recordingssounds presented with their ecological, non normalized loudness, and to the same corpus equalized in loudness. Twotypes of perceptual structures (multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis) are derived. Domination ofone auditory attribute – loudness – on less salient ones is discussed according to the two types of perceptualstructures. In the non-loudness-normalized corpus, loudness was the main factor explaining participant’s judgmentsfor both tasks. In particular, representations derived from sorting data almost solely reflected sound pressure leveldifference between sounds. On the opposite, loudness normalization allowed the emergence of several predictedauditory attributes that characterize the tested sounds. On that second corpus however, sorting data was found lessappropriate than pairwise data to provide interpretable continuous dimensions.

International audience; In this work, we study how loudness affects the structure of the perceptual representation of sounds with similar timbre. Using psychoacoustics experiments, we compare the perceptual representations of the same sounds presented either with their non-normalized, ecological sound pressure level or normalized in loudness. The corpus of sounds, recordings of the interior of different cars, moving at the same motor speed, and having the same price range, consists of sounds with similar timbre, produced by similar sources, in order to let participants focus on sound properties, rather than source differences. Two types of perceptual structures (multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis) were derived from data obtained with two types of tasks (pairwise comparisons and sorting tasks), and compared. In the non-loudness-normalized corpus, loudness was the main factor explaining participant's judgements for both tasks. Only in the loudness-normalized corpus did auditory attributes emerge that characterize the timbre of interior car sounds. In addition, tasks involving sorting data were found to be less appropriate than pairwise data to provide interpretable continuous dimensions.

The experiments conducted in this research aimed to increase our understanding of olfactory properties and classify them hierarchically through entailment. The research objective was to build an odor classification based on internal knowledge (i.e. mental context). Twelve floral scents were described freely by 60 participants. First, three sensory judges undertook a semantic analysis of the 1145 olfactory terms gathered. Secondly, a study of the entailment between olfactory properties was conducted using 42 subjects working on four lists of terms describing the characteristics of floral perfumes. The results confirmed the hypothesis that olfactory properties show tree-like structure. This allowed us to propose a classification system composed of two superordinate categories: First, objects , being olfactory sources, constitute the first category and are considered as olfactory properties themselves (i.e. civilization , food and natural sources ). Second non-objects properties are those applicable to a diversity of objects: (i.e. properties , such as objects' physical state: sensory, intensity, space, time) and those related to the subject (as personal feelings and value judgments). Based on these results, it appears that olfactory properties can be organized as a semantic network in line with the general theory of categorization.

cote interne IRCAM: Caramiaux14a; National audience; We investigated gesture description of sound stimuli performed during a listening task. Our hypothesis is that the strategies in gestural responses depend on the level of identification of the sound source and specifically on the identification of the action causing the sound. To validate our hypothesis, we conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, we built two corpora of sounds. The first corpus contains sounds with identifiable causal actions. The second contains sounds for which no causal actions could be identified. These corpora properties were validated through a listening test. In the second experiment, participants performed arm and hand gestures synchronously while listening to sounds taken from these corpora. Afterward, we conducted interviews asking participants to verbalize their experience while watching their own video recordings. They were questioned on their perception of the listened sounds and on their gestural strategies. We showed that for the sounds where causal action can be identified, participants mainly mimic the action that has produced the sound. In the other case, when no action can be associated with the sound, participants trace contours related to sound acoustic features. We also found that the interparticipants’ gesture variability is higher for causal sounds compared to noncausal sounds. Variability demonstrates that, in the first case, participants have several ways of producing the same action, whereas in the second case, the sound features tend to make the gesture responses consistent.

International audience; Mutations in late 20th-century sound design have transformed it from an empirical know-how into a full-fledged research field, with applications in the domain of everyday sound perception. This evolution leads us to propose an updated definition and a new description of the sound design process. Our updated definition, namely ‘making intentions audible’, is based on two types of intentions, one, essential, of function, and the other of form. We describe here three types of intentions of function, able to communicate information through an artifact. We then give a new description of the overall sound design process, as a combination of three steps (analysing, creating and testing), which articulate sound perception and sound design. Our first claim here is that the sound design process should be informed by knowledge, research and exploration of everyday sound perception; several industrial examples thereof will be presented. Our second claim is that sound design should be used to inform everyday sound perception research, both by suggesting new informative experiments and raising new methodological issues, ranging from sound design tools to experimental setups that need to be implemented specifically in the framework of sonic interaction design.

National audience; Nous avons mené une première étude sur la classification libre de sons environnementaux. Les résultats de cette étude ont montré que des auditeurs sans expertise sonore ont tendance à regrouper les sons de façon causale. Nous avons trouvé une distinction claire entre les catégories de sons produits par des gaz, des liquides, des solides et par des machines électriques. Ce résultat confirme une classification théorique proposée dans la littérature. Lors d’une deuxième étude présentée ici, nous nous sommes focalisés sur la catégorie des solides produisant une grande variété de sons. Nous avons demandé à des participants sans expertise sonore de faire des groupes de sons en se focalisant sur l’action produisant le son. Les sons sélectionnés avaient été au préalable bien identifiés. Après leur classification, il était demandé au participant de décrire chaque classe produite. Pour analyser les résultats, nous avons utilisé une technique d’analyse par groupements hiérarchiques qui produit deux arbres. Le premier arbre reflète la structure principale, le deuxième quant à lui pouvant montrer une structure secondaire. Le but était de mettre en lumière différents types de similarité utilisés en même temps lors d’une classification par une même personne ou par différentes personnes. Nous avons complété cette analyse par une étude des verbalisations produites. Nous avons effectué deux types d’analyses, une analyse générale avec ALCESTE et une analyse spécifique avec LEXICO pour produire un portrait de chaque classe issue de l’arbre hiérarchique. Nous avons fait cette deuxième analyse pour chacun des deux arbres. Nous présenterons le résultat de cette étude qui montre deux grandes catégories associées dans un cas à des interactions entre objets (discrètes, continues, composées) et dans l’autre cas à une modification de l’objet (déformation, rupture). Nous discuterons aussi de l’apport d’une analyse de classification par groupements hiérarchiques produisant deux structures distinctes.

Free classification was used to explore similarity relations in contemporary musical materials. Thirty-four subsections from the five themes of The Angel of Death by Roger Reynolds were composed identically for piano (Expt. 1) and chamber orchestra (Expt. 2) in terms of pitch, rhythm, and dynamics. Listeners were asked to group together those judged to be musically similar and to describe the similarities between the subsections in each group. Listeners based their classifications on surface similarities related to tempo, rhythmic and melodic texture, pitch register, melodic contour, and articulation. They were to some extent also based on similarity of the mood evoked by the excerpts. This latter factor was more prominent in the verbalizations for the orchestral version. Instrumentation, timbre, and type of timbral change (smooth, disjunctive) also affected classifications in the orchestral version. Perceptual relations among thematic materials within the piece and the interaction of form-bearing dimensions in musical similarity perception are discussed.

Based on a review of everyday sound classification studies, we define three types of similarity that might underlie the formation of categories: acoustical similarity, related to the perception of the sound signal properties; causal similarity, related to the perception of the cause of the sound; semantic similarity, related to the meaning of the sounds. This study focuses on the influence of the degree of sound source identification on the type of similarity used during a free sorting task. Our hypothesis is that well‐identified sounds will lead to categories based on causal or semantic similarities, while non‐identified sounds will lead to categories based on acoustical similarity. First we measure the causal uncertainty of each sound of a set of kitchen sounds. We ask to participants to describe the cause of the sounds in order to measure the degree of identification for each sound. The results of a free sorting task on this sound corpus indicate that participants groups together sounds according to our assumptions. The classification of the well‐identified sounds shows a clear distinction between classes of sound events (gas, liquid, solids, motor) confirming a taxonomy proposed in literature. [Work supported by the CLOSED project of the NEST program]

cote interne IRCAM: Houix10c; None / None; National audience; The literature on the perception of environmental sounds often postulates that these sounds are perceptually organized according to their cause. In a previous study, we found experimental results consistent with this assumption by showing that, in the case of identifiable sounds and non‐expert listeners, main categories of liquids, gases, electrical devices, and solids appear. We report here a study specifically exploring this latter category. Participants were required to categorize a set of sounds according to the actions causing the sound and to describe the resulting categories. We analyze the classifications with a specific hierarchal cluster analysis producing two dendrograms. The second dendrogram is used to highlight a possible secondary categorization that may add to the primary categorization. Therefore, this technique allows taking into account the multiple types of similarity that might occur in a categorization task. This statistical analysis of the classifications was complemented by a linguistic analysis of the descriptions of the categories (ALCESTE and LEXICO). This analysis shows two main categories of descriptions: those describing several objects in interaction and those describing modifications of an object. Eventually, we discuss how hierarchical cluster and linguistic analyses complement to provide a portrait of the perceptive categorization of sounds of solids.