Individual listening styles partially stem from cochlear micromechanical irregularities rather than attention alone

Evidence

An unexpected finding of previous psychophysical studies is that listeners show highly replicable, individualistic patterns of decision weights on frequencies affecting their performance in spectral discrimination tasks—what has been referred to as individual listening styles . We, like many other researchers, have attributed these listening styles to peculiarities in how listeners attend to sounds, but we now believe they partially reflect irregularities in cochlear micromechanics modifying what listeners hear. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5755

Categorization

• XREF: Links auditory physiology to the discrimination/decision-weight psychophysical literature the reader is likely building toward on how perception is shaped below the level of attention. — connects to: Nonlinear cochlear mechanics make listeners perceive nonexistent difference tones; Psychoacoustic tuning curves directly reflect cochlear mechanical processing. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 223; Attention shapes what a listener perceives as loud in complex soundscapes (+3 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5755

Broader Connections

• Auditory perception of the same physical sound varies between individuals #expands (0.85)
• Attention shapes what a listener perceives as loud in complex soundscapes #contradicts (0.80)
• Brain efferents can dynamically adjust cochlear gain during listening #contradicts (0.75)
• Physical frequency is the wrong scale for describing inner-ear effects #corroborates (0.75)