| Résumé |
The influence of listener's expertise and sound identification on the categorization of environmental sounds is reported in three studies. In Study 1, the causal uncertainty of 96 sounds is measured by counting the different causes described by 29 participants. In Study 2, fifteen experts and fifteen non-experts classify a selection of 60 sounds, and indicate the similarities they use. In Study 3, 38 participants indicate their confidence in identifying the sounds. Participants report using either acoustical similarities or similarities of the causes of the sounds. Experts use acoustical similarity more often than non-experts, who use the similarity of the cause of the sounds. Sounds with a low causal uncertainty are more often grouped together because of the similarities of the cause, whereas sounds with a high causal uncertainty are grouped together more often because of the acoustical similarities. The same conclusions are reached for identification confidence. This measure allows the sound classification to be predicted, and is a straightforward method to determine the appropriate description of a sound. {par bf Keywords:} environmental sounds, categorization, similarity, causal uncertainty, identification confidence |
