Pelofi C, de Gardelle V, Egré P, Pressnitzer D
Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, CNRS UMR 8248, École normale supérieure - PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France.
Institut d'étude de la cognition, École normale supérieure - PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017 Feb 19;372(1714). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0107. Epub 2017 Jan 2.
Because musicians are trained to discern sounds within complex acoustic scenes, such as an orchestra playing, it has been hypothesized that musicianship improves general auditory scene analysis abilities. Here, we compared musicians and non-musicians in a behavioural paradigm using ambiguous stimuli, combining performance, reaction times and confidence measures. We used 'Shepard tones', for which listeners may report either an upward or a downward pitch shift for the same ambiguous tone pair. Musicians and non-musicians performed similarly on the pitch-shift direction task. In particular, both groups were at chance for the ambiguous case. However, groups differed in their reaction times and judgements of confidence. Musicians responded to the ambiguous case with long reaction times and low confidence, whereas non-musicians responded with fast reaction times and maximal confidence. In a subsequent experiment, non-musicians displayed reduced confidence for the ambiguous case when pure-tone components of the Shepard complex were made easier to discern. The results suggest an effect of musical training on scene analysis: we speculate that musicians were more likely to discern components within complex auditory scenes, perhaps because of enhanced attentional resolution, and thus discovered the ambiguity. For untrained listeners, stimulus ambiguity was not available to perceptual awareness.This article is part of the themed issue 'Auditory and visual scene analysis'.
由于音乐家接受过在复杂声学场景（如管弦乐队演奏）中辨别声音的训练，因此有人推测音乐才能可提高一般听觉场景分析能力。在此，我们在一个使用模糊刺激的行为范式中比较了音乐家和非音乐家，综合考量了表现、反应时间和信心度量。我们使用了“谢泼德音调”，对于相同的模糊音调对，听众可能会报告音调向上或向下偏移。音乐家和非音乐家在音调偏移方向任务上表现相似。特别是，两组在模糊情况的表现上都处于随机水平。然而，两组在反应时间和信心判断上存在差异。音乐家对模糊情况的反应时间长且信心低，而非音乐家的反应时间快且信心十足。在随后的实验中，当谢泼德复合体的纯音成分更容易辨别时，非音乐家对模糊情况的信心降低。结果表明音乐训练对场景分析有影响：我们推测音乐家更有可能辨别复杂听觉场景中的成分，这可能是因为注意力分辨率提高，从而发现了其中的模糊性。对于未经训练的听众来说，刺激的模糊性无法被感知意识到。本文是主题为“听觉和视觉场景分析”的特刊的一部分。
