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Illusory discontinuity is an
Individual differences in sound-in-noise perception are related to the strength of short-latency neural responses to noise
" PLoS One. 6(2): e17266. . The most susceptible listeners describe their sensations in terms of the sound actually containing a physical gap. The illusory discontinuity is strongest when the interrupting sound is short (50 ms). Longer sounds elicit weaker illusory discontinuity; this effect may be related to better auditory segregation.
Illusory discontinuity is an auditory illusion
Auditory illusions are false perceptions of a real sound or outside stimulus. These false perceptions are the equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or sounds that should not be p ...
in which a continuous ongoing sound becomes inaudible during a brief, non-masking noise. The illusion is perceived only by some listeners, but not by others, reflecting individual variation in hearing abilities. It has been estimated that among young adults 24% are susceptible to illusory discontinuity.Vinnik E, Itskov PM, Balaban E (2011).Individual differences in sound-in-noise perception are related to the strength of short-latency neural responses to noise
" PLoS One. 6(2): e17266. . The most susceptible listeners describe their sensations in terms of the sound actually containing a physical gap. The illusory discontinuity is strongest when the interrupting sound is short (50 ms). Longer sounds elicit weaker illusory discontinuity; this effect may be related to better auditory segregation.
Relation to other auditory illusions
Illusory discontinuity is antagonistic with illusory continuity of tones (auditoryfilling-in
In vision, filling-in phenomena are those responsible for the completion of missing information across the physiological blind spot, and across natural and artificial scotomata. There is also evidence for similar mechanisms of completion in norma ...
). While illusory continuity restores perceptual continuity of obscured sounds, illusory discontinuity disrupts the perception even if the sound is indeed continuous. Listeners strongly susceptible to illusory discontinuity do not perceive illusory auditory continuity .
Relation to auditory masking
The illusion is likely to be a novel form of informational masking (broadly defined as a degradation of auditory detection or discrimination of a signal embedded in a context of other similar sounds).Leek MR, Brown ME, Dorman MF (1991) Informational masking and auditory attention. Percept Psychophys. 50(3):205-14 Illusory discontinuity cannot be explained by simultaneous masking, because it appears even if the noise is as far as one octave away.Relation to auditory stream segregation
It has been suggested that illusory discontinuity is related to inability to segregate the ongoing sound from the interrupting noise, although more research is needed to prove this.Physiology
The mechanism of the illusory discontinuity is unknown. Anelectroencephalographic
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocort ...
study has demonstrated that participants who were not prone to illusory discontinuity showed robust early neural responses at 40–66 ms after noise burst onset, whereas those prone to the illusion lacked these early responses. This suggests that the individual variability in perceiving discontinuity illusion is related to neural processing of the interrupting sound.
See also
*Auditory illusion
Auditory illusions are false perceptions of a real sound or outside stimulus. These false perceptions are the equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or sounds that should not be p ...
*Auditory masking
In audio signal processing, auditory masking occurs when the perception of one sound is affected by the presence of another sound.Gelfand, S.A. (2004) ''Hearing – An Introduction to Psychological and Physiological Acoustics'' 4th Ed. New York, ...
*Auditory scene analysis
In perception and psychophysics, auditory scene analysis (ASA) is a proposed model for the basis of auditory perception. This is understood as the process by which the human auditory system organizes sound into perceptually meaningful elements. T ...
*Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...
* Illusory continuity of tones
References
{{Auditory illusions Auditory illusions Music psychology