Auditory attention requires temporal variation in any sound signal
Evidence
Variation of some kind is needed during any sound in order to hold the listener’s attention. The acoustic communication of new information to a listener, whether speech, music, environmental sounds or warning signals from a natural or person-made source, requires that the input signal varies in some way, with time. Such variation may be of the pitch, loudness or timbre of the sound. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1510
Categorization
- XREF: A principle the reader can carry outward: monotonous constancy is informationally silent regardless of level — a life/attention analogy worth pondering. — connects to: Noise that varies at speech-like rates hijacks auditory attention; Temporal processing is essential for hearing speech and music — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 925; Sound must vary over time to hold listener attention — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1486 (+2 more)
- SEED: Article angle: why sameness reads as silence — the acoustic case for why static environments, routines, and unchanging signals fail to hold attention.
Broader Connections
- Noise that varies at speech-like rates hijacks auditory attention
#expands(0.92) - Sound must vary over time to hold listener attention
#corroborates(0.90) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1486 - Temporal change is a defining feature of natural sound perception
#corroborates(0.82) - Temporal processing is essential for hearing speech and music
#corroborates(0.78) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 925 - Hearing is highly sensitive to temporal changes in sound
#corroborates(0.75) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 685