The ability to detect and track relevant acoustic signals embedded in a background of other sounds is crucial for hearing in complex acoustic environments. This ability is exemplified by a perceptual phenomenon known as "rhythmic masking release" (RMR). To demonstrate RMR, a sequence of tones forming a target rhythm is intermingled with physically identical "Distracter" sounds that perceptually...

The question of how everyday cluttered acoustic environments are parsed by the auditory system into separate streams is one of the most fundamental in perceptual science. Despite its importance, the study of its underlying neural mechanisms remains in its infancy; with a lack of general frameworks to account for both psychoacoustic and physiological experimental findings. Consequently, the few ...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of spectral overlap and amplitude modulation (AM) rate for stream segregation for noise signals, as well as to test the build-up effect based on these two cues. Segregation ability was evaluated using an objective paradigm with listeners' attention focused on stream segregation. Stimulus sequences consisted of two interleaved sets of bandpa...