Because the environment often includes multiple sounds that overlap in time, listeners must segregate a sound of interest (the auditory figure) from other co-occurring sounds (the unattended auditory ground). We conducted a series of experiments to clarify the principles governing the extraction of auditory figures. We distinguish between auditory…

Onset asynchrony is an important cue for auditory scene analysis. For example, a harmonic of a vowel that begins before the other components contributes less to the perceived phonetic quality. This effect was thought primarily to involve high-level grouping processes, because the contribution can be partly restored by accompanying the leading…

A harmonic that begins before the other harmonics contributes less than they do to vowel quality. This reduction can be partly reversed by accompanying the leading portion with a captor tone. This effect is usually interpreted as reflecting perceptual grouping of the captor with the leading portion. Instead, it has recently been proposed that the…