Pitch and pitch change interact in auditory displays

Designing auditory displays requires understanding how different attributes of sound are processed. Operators must often listen to a particular stimul us dimension and make control actions contingent on the auditory informatio n. Three experiments used a selective-listening paradigm to examine interac tions between auditory dimensions. Participants were instructed to attend t o either relative pitch or direction of pitch change of dynamic stimuli. Wi th vertically arranged keypress responses, reactions to both dimensions sho wed stimulus-response compatibility effects, indicating that pitch is treat ed spatially. Direction of pitch change affected responses to pitch; level of pitch more strongly affected responses to pitch change. To reduce delete rious effects of irrelevant pitch information, auditory display designers c an restrict the pitch range used to display dynamic data.