Mark DeBellis wrote:
I have the following worry about audio listening tests. Suppose the
meaningful variable is a property of an extended passage, not a short
snippet. Then a subject's failure to accurately distinguish or
re-identify may be due to an inability to retain the property in
memory.

Nobody uses short snippets to do audio listening tests or comparisons.
We usually use a complete song or passage of an extended work.

I am thinking by way of contrast to visual examples. I just made two
prints of a photograph using different settings on my printer. I am
looking at the face of the subject and I can see that the contrast is
higher in one than in the other. That is a Gestalt property of a
meaningful chunk of the picture, not a property of a few pixels (cf.
notes). The difference with the musical case is that I can compare
the contrast of the two pictures directly, whereas in music no
immediate comparison is possible. At best I have to keep the property
in memory, and maybe the relevant variable is something not easily
retained.

Not true. You can perform rapid switching as often and as many as you
want. You level match the two sources so that the only difference you
hear is the sound quality differences between the two. Rapid switching
is the audio equivalent of a direct comparison.

Your complaint would apply only to long term comparisons, where you
listen first to a complete song on one source, then switch to the other
source and listen all over again.

Gary Eickmeier