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.