Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg 26129, Germany.
Signal Processing and Speech Communication Laboratory, Graz University of Technology, Graz 8010, Austria.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2024 Aug 1;156(2):922-938. doi: 10.1121/10.0028152.
Voices arguably occupy a superior role in auditory processing. Specifically, studies have reported that singing voices are processed faster and more accurately and possess greater salience in musical scenes compared to instrumental sounds. However, the underlying acoustic features of this superiority and the generality of these effects remain unclear. This study investigates the impact of frequency micro-modulations (FMM) and the influence of interfering sounds on sound recognition. Thirty young participants, half with musical training, engage in three sound recognition experiments featuring short vocal and instrumental sounds in a go/no-go task. Accuracy and reaction times are measured for sounds from recorded samples and excerpts of popular music. Each sound is presented in separate versions with and without FMM, in isolation or accompanied by a piano. Recognition varies across sound categories, but no general vocal superiority emerges and no effects of FMM. When presented together with interfering sounds, all sounds exhibit degradation in recognition. However, whereas /a/ sounds stand out by showing a distinct robustness to interference (i.e., less degradation of recognition), /u/ sounds lack this robustness. Acoustical analysis implies that recognition differences can be explained by spectral similarities. Together, these results challenge the notion of general vocal superiority in auditory perception.
声音在听觉处理中无疑占据着主导地位。具体而言，研究报告称，与器乐声相比，人声在音乐场景中被处理得更快、更准确，也更突出。然而，这种优势的潜在声学特征以及这些效应的普遍性仍不清楚。本研究调查了频率微调制（FMM）的影响以及干扰声音对声音识别的影响。30 名年轻参与者，一半有音乐训练，参与了三个声音识别实验，在 Go/No-Go 任务中使用短的人声和器乐声音。从录制样本和流行音乐片段中测量声音的准确性和反应时间。每个声音都以单独的版本呈现，有和没有 FMM，有和没有钢琴声。声音类别之间的识别存在差异，但没有出现普遍的人声优势，也没有 FMM 的影响。当与干扰声音一起呈现时，所有声音的识别都出现了退化。然而，/a/音表现出明显的抗干扰能力（即识别退化较少），而/u/音则没有这种能力。声学分析表明，识别差异可以用频谱相似性来解释。综上所述，这些结果挑战了听觉感知中普遍存在人声优势的观点。
