Perceived auditory continuity with alternately rising and falling frequency transitions.

Six experiments were conducted investigating perceived auditory continuity with alternately rising and falling frequency glides, in which the glides were perceived as continuous when deleted portions were replaced by white noise bursts. The first three experiments showed that perceptual continuity could be obtained when the deleted portion came either in the middle of the glide, or at the top and bottom of the glides; continuity was actually better for the latter condition. Also, it was found that as glide duration increased, the threshold between perceived continuity and discontinuity increased; there was a similar increase as the difference between highest and lowest frequencies increased. It was also found, in Experiments IV-VI, that when the peak was deleted and replaced with noise, there was no perceptual extrapolation of the incomplete glides; rather, there seemed to be considerable rounding off of the trajectory of the glide. An interesting auditory phenomenon which has recently been investigated is perceived auditory continuity, or auditory induction (Warren, Obusek, & Ackroff, 1972). Basically, the phenomenon is one in which a soft, intermittent sound is perceived as continuous when the breaks are filled in with a louder sound. This