Some Observations on the Auditory Staircase Illusion

Abstract

The breakdown of Shepard's auditory staircase illusion at high presentation rates was examined. Two alternative hypotheses were advanced to explain this lack of illusory effect under these conditions: sheer speed of presentation of the stimulus items may have prevented the illusion developing or, the continual rapid presentation of a set of stimulus items within a sufficiently short period might have enabled any given stimulus set to be perceived as a Gestalt. Some experimental support was obtained for the latter repetition hypothesis for 24 Ss in 3 conditions.