Auditory statistical learning: predictive frequency information affects the deployment of contextually mediated attentional resources on perceptual tasks

ABSTRACT

Statistical learning is a general phenomenon in which environmental regularities are implicitly acquired through repeated exposure to those environments. Sometimes, that information can be utilised to affect various aspects of cognitive performance (e.g. reaction time) on tasks that utilise selective attention (e.g. visual search). In the current study, we examined the effect of passively listening to predictive auditory contexts in facilitating attention to a certain frequency or frequency range. In doing so, we found that there is a general tendency for attentional resources to be negatively affected when the context sequences are made novel after context–target associations have been formed (Experiment 1), and when the context no longer reliably cues the previous target (Experiment 2). The experiments are framed to contrast Associative Learning and Memory Hypothesis perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Contextual cueing
• auditory attention
• pitch perception
• implicit memory
• statistical learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada to TAM. Thanks to Heather Rodd, Adriana Chipelski and Dana Bernier for their assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.