An objective measurement of the build-up of auditory streaming and of its modulation by attention.

Three experiments studied auditory streaming using sequences of alternating "ABA" triplets, where "A" and "B" were 50-ms tones differing in frequency by Δf semitones and separated by 75-ms gaps. Experiment 1 showed that detection of a short increase in the gap between a B tone and the preceding A tone, imposed on one ABA triplet, was better when the delay occurred early versus late in the sequence, and for Δf = 4 vs. Δf = 8. The results of this experiment were consistent with those of a subjective streaming judgment task. Experiment 2 showed that the detection of a delay 12.5 s into a 13.5-s sequence could be improved by requiring participants to perform a task on competing stimuli presented to the other ear for the first 10 s of that sequence. Hence, adding an additional task demand could improve performance via its effect on the perceptual organization of a sound sequence. The results demonstrate that attention affects streaming in an objective task and that the effects of build-up are not completely under voluntary control. In particular, even though build-up can impair performance in an objective task, participants are unable to prevent this from happening.