Location and frequency cues in auditory selective attention

The roles of frequency and location cues in auditory selective attention we re investigated in a series of experiments in which target tones were disti nguished from distracters by frequency, location, or the conjunction of fre quency and location features. When frequency separations in high-rate tone sequences were greater than 1 octave, participants were fastest at identify ing targets defined by frequency and were sometimes faster at identifying c onjunction than location targets. Frequency salience diminished as filterin g demands were reduced: At long interstimulus intervals (> 2.0 s), performa nce was superior in location conditions. The results suggest that frequency may play a role in auditory selective attention tasks analogous to the rol e of spatial position in visual attention.