Identification and discrimination of sweep formants

Abstract

Earlier identification experiments with sweep tones are repeated with rising and falling single formant (band) sweeps, with durations ranging from 15 to 40 msec and sweep rates from 0 to 40 oct/sec. Steady-state portions of 100-msec duration are then added to the sweeps. The general conclusions are that the tendency to perceive level and slightly rising tones as falling, which was such a prominent feature of the earlier results, disappears as the stimuli become more com-plex, and that sweep discrimination seems to be a function of the difference between the initial and the final frequency of a sweep. © 1989 Psychonomic Society, Inc.