Effects of multiple congruent cues on concurrent sound segregation during passive and active listening: An event-related potential (ERP) study

• We assessed the effects of multiple cues on the object-related negativity (ORN).
• Combining cues consistently led to sub-additive effects on the ORN amplitude.
• ORN reflects the integrated assessment of the presence of more than one sound source.
• We used two experimental situations to investigate the effects of attention.

In two experiments, we assessed the effects of combining different cues of concurrent sound segregation on the object-related negativity (ORN) and the P400 event-related potential components. Participants were presented with sequences of complex tones, half of which contained some manipulation: one or two harmonic partials were mistuned, delayed, or presented from a different location than the rest. In separate conditions, one, two, or three of these manipulations were combined. Participants watched a silent movie (passive listening) or reported after each tone whether they perceived one or two concurrent sounds (active listening). ORN was found in almost all conditions except for location difference alone during passive listening. Combining several cues or manipulating more than one partial consistently led to sub-additive effects on the ORN amplitude. These results support the view that ORN reflects a combined, feature-unspecific assessment of the auditory system regarding the contribution of two sources to the incoming sound.