The perceptual integration of auditory stimulus edges: An illusory short tone in stimulus patterns consisting of two partly overlapping glides

Two partly overlapping frequency glides can be perceived as consisting of a long pitch trajectory accompanied by a short tone in the temporal middle. It was found that the appearance of this middle tone could not be related to peripheral processes concerned with spectral splatter or combination tones that could have emerged during the overlap of the glides. Furthermore, it was found that the middle tone was perceived even when components of the 2 glides were separated by more than an equivalent rectangular bandwidth at any time during the overlap. The appearance of the middle tone indicates that auditory events can result from the perceptual integration of component parts-that is, stimulus edges-of acoustically different sounds.