Intensity of guitar playing as a function of auditory feedback

Subjects played an electric guitar while auditory feedback was attenuated or amplified at seven sidetone levels varying in 10-dB steps around a comfortable listening level. The sidetone signal was presented in quiet (experiment I) and several levels of white noise (experiment II). Subjects compensated for feedback changes, demonstrating a sidetone amplification as well as a Lombard effect. The similarity of these results to those found previously for speech suggests that guitar playing can be a useful analog for the function of auditory feedback in speech production. Unlike previous findings for speech, the sidetone-amplification effect was not potentiated by masking, consistent with a hypothesis that potentiation in speech is attributable to interference with bone conduction caused by the masking noise.