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Robust and efficient online auditory psychophysics

View ORCID ProfileSijia Zhao, View ORCID ProfileChristopher A. Brown, View ORCID ProfileLori L. Holt, View ORCID ProfileFrederic Dick
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.17.452796
Sijia Zhao
aDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
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  • For correspondence: sijia.zhao@psy.ox.ac.uk sijia.zhao@psy.ox.ac.uk
Christopher A. Brown
bDepartment of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, 4028 Forbes Tower Pittsburgh, PA 15260,
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  • For correspondence: cbrown1@pitt.edu
Lori L. Holt
cDepartment of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15232,
dNeuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15232,
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  • For correspondence: loriholt@cmu.edu loriholt@cmu.edu
Frederic Dick
eDepartment of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK,
fDepartment of Experimental Psychology, PALS, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, UK,
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  • For correspondence: f.dick@bbk.ac.uk f.dick@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Most human auditory psychophysics research has historically been conducted in carefully controlled environments with calibrated audio equipment, and over potentially hours of repetitive testing with expert listeners. Here, we operationally define such conditions as having high ‘auditory hygiene’. From this perspective, conducting auditory psychophysical paradigms online presents a serious challenge, in that results may hinge on absolute sound presentation level, reliably estimated perceptual thresholds, low and controlled background noise levels, and sustained motivation and attention. We introduce a set of procedures that address these challenges and facilitate auditory hygiene for online auditory psychophysics. First, we establish a simple means of setting sound presentation levels. Across a set of four level-setting conditions conducted in person, we demonstrate the stability and robustness of this level setting procedure in open air and controlled settings. Second, we test participants’ tone-in-noise thresholds using widely adopted online experiment platforms and demonstrate that reliable threshold estimates can be derived online in approximately one minute of testing. Third, using these level and threshold setting procedures to establish participant-specific stimulus conditions, we show that an online implementation of the classic probe-signal paradigm can be used to demonstrate frequency-selective attention on an individual-participant basis, using a third of the trials used in recent in-lab experiments. Finally, we show how threshold and attentional measures relate to well-validated assays of online participants’ in-task motivation, fatigue, and confidence. This demonstrates the promise of online auditory psychophysics for addressing new auditory perception and neuroscience questions quickly, efficiently, and with more diverse samples. Code for the tests is publicly available through Pavlovia and Gorilla.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • Updates for the 3rd round of revision. Authors' response letters are attached at the end of the manuscript.

  • https://run.pavlovia.org/sijiazhao/amplitudechecking_demo

  • https://run.pavlovia.org/sijiazhao/threshold_demo/

  • https://run.pavlovia.org/sijiazhao/probesignal_demo

  • https://gitlab.pavlovia.org/sijiazhao/amplitudechecking_demo

  • https://gitlab.pavlovia.org/sijiazhao/threshold_demo

  • https://gitlab.pavlovia.org/sijiazhao/probesignal_demo

  • https://github.com/sijiazhao/TPS_data

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 24, 2022.
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Robust and efficient online auditory psychophysics
Sijia Zhao, Christopher A. Brown, Lori L. Holt, Frederic Dick
bioRxiv 2021.07.17.452796; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.17.452796
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Robust and efficient online auditory psychophysics
Sijia Zhao, Christopher A. Brown, Lori L. Holt, Frederic Dick
bioRxiv 2021.07.17.452796; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.17.452796

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