Attending to Sounds In the Blink of An Eye

Abstract

When we attend to something within a rapid sequence, the ‘eyes of attention’ appear to shut for a short period of time, limiting our information processing ability. This thesis details an investigation into the factors that could potentially modulate the limits of perception and attention to brief sounds over time. Due to a scarcity of research and unresolved debates, the temporal limits of perception and attentional selection in the auditory modality are not sufficiently understood. In a series of empirical studies, we tested whether these temporal limits can be modulated through various experimental manipulations and/or individual differences. These studies yielded a complex pattern of results which suggests that human voices can effectively overcome these limits. This is in line with the evolutionary and neuroscientific perspectives highlighting the importance of human voice perception for humans. However, this modulatory effect of sound category appears to vary depending on the duration that the sounds are presented for. The investigations of factors related to individual differences (i.e., musicality, working memory, and impulsivity) were not conclusive, at least within the paradigms employed here. In addition to the behavioural findings, pupillometry data shed light into the amount of mental effort linked with attending to brief sounds in time. The current work has contributed to, and is in line with, the recent direction of the empirical findings and theoretical accounts of temporal selective attention. It has also offered several directions for future research with important theoretical and societal implications.