This thesis investigated the question, if it is possible to train a subject?s perception of harmonic complex tones and of whether this has a generalizing effect on the perception of similar, but new auditory stimuli. Moreover, possible transfer-effects on visual pattern recognition were of interest. The stimuli used in this study were ambiguous pairs of complex tones with missing fundamental frequencies. Falling missing fundamental frequencies were associated with physically present rising overtone spectra, and vice versa. By means of the Auditory Ambiguity Test (AAT; Seither-Preisler et al., 2007) the relative tendency of a subject to hear out the missing fundamental frequency (abstract, completing hearing) or the actual sound spectrum (concrete hearing) was determined with a set of 100 ambiguous tone-pairs. The age of the tested subjects varied from 18 to 57 years. Two groups, one exposition-group and one training-group, each containing 15 subjects, were compared. Both groups were repeatedly presented with the AAT. Only the training group received fundamental pitch training (AAT version with the same tone-pairs, but now containing the fundamental frequencies with threefold intensity) between the testing sessions. In course of the experiment, the subjects of both groups showed an increasing tendency towards fundamental pitch perception, with no difference between the two groups; hence the specific training was not effective. A transfer effect of auditory learning through repeated exposure was found to ambiguous complex tone stimuli of another auditory test with similar stimuli. Moreover, both groups were tested for their visual pattern recognition at the beginning and at the end of the study, with poorer results at the second session. The AAT-score at the beginning of the experiment was the only variable which could significantly predict the learning progress and the AAT-performance at the end of the study. |