Interstimulus interval as an effective measure of auditory spatial attention

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 1999-10, Vol.106 (4_Supplement), p.2208-2208
• Main Authors: Skelly, Michael A., Pastore, Richard E., Crawley, Edward J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.427499

Previous experiments investigating auditory spatial attention have focused on the importance of the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the spatial cue and target. These experiments have reported accelerated target discrimination judgments for longer SOAs. Although this measurement provided insight into the working mechanisms of spatial attention, there typically was a confound between SOA and the interstimulus interval (ISI). The present experiment was designed to evaluate the importance of SOA, ISI, and cue duration by systematic manipulation of these variables (where SOA is composed of cue duration and ISI). Each trial began with a binaural cue that provided no information about spatial (ear) location of the monaural target, but alerted the participant to the anticipated presentation of the target. Listeners responded by indicating the target ear. The results indicate that longer SOAs are not required to accelerate target discrimination. Instead, the presence of a silent gap between the presentation of the cue and target stimulus (ISI) is far more important for accelerating performance. Furthermore, listeners seem adept at using available information in developing effective attentional strategies.