Perceived Rate of Monotic and Dichotically Alternating Clicks

Abstract

Subjects compared the apparent repetition rates of trains of dichotically alternating clicks, presented at 1–40/sec, with the apparent rates of monotic trains. All dichotic rates were underestimated, the degree of underestimation varying from a few percent at 1/sec to 35%–40% from about 7.5/sec onward. The latter rate corresponds to the switching rates producing minimal intelligibility of speech presented alternately to the two ears. Unlike the results of switched-speech experiments, however, the present results appear to be unequivocally interpretable as indicating a difficulty in integrating dichotically alternating inputs into a single percept.