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The glissando illusion: A spatial illusory contour in hearing

2005; Acoustical Society of America; Volume: 117; Issue: 4_Supplement Linguagem: Inglês

10.1121/1.4787571

1520-9024

Diana Deutsch, Kamil Hamaoui, Trevor Henthorn,

Multisensory perception and integration

In the glissando illusion (originally demonstrated by Deutsch, 1995) a synthesized oboe tone of constant pitch is played together with a sine wave whose pitch repeatedly glides up and down. These are presented through two loudspeakers, placed to the listeners left and right, and are repeatedly switched between loudspeakers, such that when the oboe tone emanates from one, a segment of the sine wave emanates from the other. The oboe tone is perceived correctly as switching between loudspeakers; however the segments of the sine wave appear to be joined together seamlessly, such that a single, continuous tone is heard, which appears to emanate from a source that moves slowly around in space in accordance with its pitch motion. In the present experiment, righthanders (n=22) tended strongly to hear the glissando move between left and right, and also between low and high in space, as its pitch moved between low and high. It was therefore frequently heard as tracing an elliptical path aligned diagonally between a position low and to the left when its pitch was lowest, and high and to the right when its pitch was highest. Nonrighthanders (n=42) perceived the illusion in statistically different ways.