Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Auditory discontinuities interact with categorization: implications for speech perception.

Lori L Holt1, Andrew J Lotto, Randy L Diehl

  • 1Department of Psychology and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA. lholt@andrew.cmu.edu

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|October 14, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Transfer of statistical learning from speech perception to production generalizes to reading.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2026
Same author

Speech motor control is not sequestered from general auditory processes.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2026
Same author

Exposure to an accent transfers to speech production in a single shot.

Cognition·2025
Same author

Accented speech modulates multiple event-related potential components across multiple levels of language processing.

Communications psychology·2025
Same author

Speech Perception is Speech Learning.

Current directions in psychological science·2025
Same author

Statistical learning dynamically shapes auditory perception.

NPJ science of learning·2025
Same journal

Interaction of near-wall bubble arrays with acoustic waves induced by an oscillating rigid wall.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026
Same journal

Ultra-broadband underwater acoustic projector based on transverse resonance orthogonal beam (TROB) mode and acoustic matching layer technique.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026
Same journal

Fine-scale quantitative analysis of bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) song shows varying stability of song types.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026
Same journal

High-resolution depth estimation for multiple wideband sources in deep sea via sparse Bayesian learninga).

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026
Same journal

Depression markers in speech: An approach based on tract variables dynamics.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026
Same journal

The oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau) alters active and diurnal calling amid vessel noise in New York City.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026
See all related articles

Auditory processing has a temporal discontinuity around 20 ms. This perceptual boundary impacts how easily we learn new sound categories, influencing language sound inventory selection.

Area of Science:

  • Psychoacoustics
  • Auditory Perception
  • Speech Science

Background:

  • Neurophysiological and behavioral studies indicate a perceptual discontinuity in auditory processing at approximately 20 ms onset time differences.
  • This discontinuity is hypothesized to underlie speech category boundaries, such as those defined by voice onset time (VOT).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the interaction between this perceptual discontinuity and the learning of novel auditory categories.
  • To determine if the placement of a category boundary relative to the perceptual discontinuity affects category learning efficiency.

Main Methods:

  • Adult listeners were trained to categorize nonspeech auditory stimuli with temporal properties mimicking VOT.
  • Category boundaries were manipulated to either align with or fall within the perceptual discontinuity.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Learning was assessed by the amount of experience required to reach criterion performance.

    • Main Results:

    • Listeners required significantly more training experience when the perceptual discontinuity fell within a learned category compared to when the boundary coincided with it.
    • This interaction between the perceptual discontinuity and learned categories was also observed in generalization tests.

    Conclusions:

    • Perceptual discontinuities significantly interact with the process of learning novel auditory categories.
    • The "learnability" of sound categories, influenced by perceptual discontinuities, may play a role in the selection of phonemic inventories across languages.