NOTE: This website is an archived copy of Al Bregman's personal website, created with the permission of Abigail Sibley and Christopher Lyons. Copyright (c) 2008 Al Bregman.

Introduction

The McGill Auditory Research Laboratory was in operation for 37 years (1969-2006), and specialized in the study of the perceptual organization of sound. We investigated the hypothesis that various phenomena of auditory perception were actually oblique glimpses of a general-purpose process of perception that we called auditory scene analysis (ASA). A description of this process can be found by clicking on the tab labeled "ASA Theory", that is shown above this text.

We began studying this process in 1969. Many of the research findings and publications are listed under appropriate headings, as well as some ideas for practical applications of the research, and a list of unresolved questions and proposed research.

The major publication summarizing the theoretical ideas and the research work of the laboratory is a book by Bregman (1990/1994). We have also brought out a compact disk of demonstrations of organizational principles in audition, which you can read about. If you have audio on your computer, you can also listen to some of them by clicking on the button "ASA Demos", that is shown above this text.

You can also read about the people who carried out the research and whose efforts led to its success, and also about the facilities of the laboratory.

Finally, you can connect to home pages for: