Cargando…

Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users

Auditory scene analysis is an elementary aspect of music perception, yet only little research has scrutinized auditory scene analysis under realistic musical conditions with diverse samples of listeners. This study probed the ability of younger normal-hearing listeners and older hearing-aid users in...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Siedenburg, Kai, Goldmann, Kirsten, van de Par, Steven
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8079728/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33935864
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608684
_version_ 1783685273960316928
author Siedenburg, Kai
Goldmann, Kirsten
van de Par, Steven
author_facet Siedenburg, Kai
Goldmann, Kirsten
van de Par, Steven
author_sort Siedenburg, Kai
collection PubMed
description Auditory scene analysis is an elementary aspect of music perception, yet only little research has scrutinized auditory scene analysis under realistic musical conditions with diverse samples of listeners. This study probed the ability of younger normal-hearing listeners and older hearing-aid users in tracking individual musical voices or lines in JS Bach's The Art of the Fugue. Five-second excerpts with homogeneous or heterogenous instrumentation of 2–4 musical voices were presented from spatially separated loudspeakers and preceded by a short cue for signaling the target voice. Listeners tracked the cued voice and detected whether an amplitude modulation was imposed on the cued voice or a distractor voice. Results indicated superior performance of young normal-hearing listeners compared to older hearing-aid users. Performance was generally better in conditions with fewer voices. For young normal-hearing listeners, there was interaction between the number of voices and the instrumentation: performance degraded less drastically with an increase in the number of voices for timbrally heterogeneous mixtures compared to homogeneous mixtures. Older hearing-aid users generally showed smaller effects of the number of voices and instrumentation, but no interaction between the two factors. Moreover, tracking performance of older hearing aid users did not differ when these participants did or did not wear hearing aids. These results shed light on the role of timbral differentiation in musical scene analysis and suggest reduced musical scene analysis abilities of older hearing-impaired listeners in a realistic musical scenario.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8079728
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-80797282021-04-29 Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users Siedenburg, Kai Goldmann, Kirsten van de Par, Steven Front Psychol Psychology Auditory scene analysis is an elementary aspect of music perception, yet only little research has scrutinized auditory scene analysis under realistic musical conditions with diverse samples of listeners. This study probed the ability of younger normal-hearing listeners and older hearing-aid users in tracking individual musical voices or lines in JS Bach's The Art of the Fugue. Five-second excerpts with homogeneous or heterogenous instrumentation of 2–4 musical voices were presented from spatially separated loudspeakers and preceded by a short cue for signaling the target voice. Listeners tracked the cued voice and detected whether an amplitude modulation was imposed on the cued voice or a distractor voice. Results indicated superior performance of young normal-hearing listeners compared to older hearing-aid users. Performance was generally better in conditions with fewer voices. For young normal-hearing listeners, there was interaction between the number of voices and the instrumentation: performance degraded less drastically with an increase in the number of voices for timbrally heterogeneous mixtures compared to homogeneous mixtures. Older hearing-aid users generally showed smaller effects of the number of voices and instrumentation, but no interaction between the two factors. Moreover, tracking performance of older hearing aid users did not differ when these participants did or did not wear hearing aids. These results shed light on the role of timbral differentiation in musical scene analysis and suggest reduced musical scene analysis abilities of older hearing-impaired listeners in a realistic musical scenario. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8079728/ /pubmed/33935864 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608684 Text en Copyright © 2021 Siedenburg, Goldmann and van de Par. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Siedenburg, Kai
Goldmann, Kirsten
van de Par, Steven
Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users
title Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users
title_full Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users
title_fullStr Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users
title_full_unstemmed Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users
title_short Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users
title_sort tracking musical voices in bach's the art of the fugue: timbral heterogeneity differentially affects younger normal-hearing listeners and older hearing-aid users
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8079728/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33935864
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608684
work_keys_str_mv AT siedenburgkai trackingmusicalvoicesinbachstheartofthefuguetimbralheterogeneitydifferentiallyaffectsyoungernormalhearinglistenersandolderhearingaidusers
AT goldmannkirsten trackingmusicalvoicesinbachstheartofthefuguetimbralheterogeneitydifferentiallyaffectsyoungernormalhearinglistenersandolderhearingaidusers
AT vandeparsteven trackingmusicalvoicesinbachstheartofthefuguetimbralheterogeneitydifferentiallyaffectsyoungernormalhearinglistenersandolderhearingaidusers