Perception of the voicing distinction in speech produced during simultaneous communication

This study investigated the perception of voice onset time (VOT) in speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC). Four normally hearing, experienced sign language users were recorded under SC and speech alone (SA) conditions speaking stimulus words with voiced and voiceless initial consonants embedded in a sentence. Twelve hearing-impaired listeners participated, with three of them randomly assigned to audit the speech sample provided by each one of the four speakers under the SC and SA conditions. In addition, 24 normal hearing listeners were randomly assigned to audit the speech samples produced by the four speakers under the SC and SA conditions, three listeners in noise and three listeners in filtered listening conditions for each of the four speakers. Although results indicated longer sentence durations for SC than SA, results showed no difference in the perception of the voicing distinction for speech produced during SC versus speech produced during SA under either the noise or filtered listening condition, or any difference in perception for the hearing-impaired listeners. This conclusion is consistent with previous research indicating that temporal alterations produced by SC do not produce degradation of temporal or spectral cues in speech or disruption of the perception of specific English phoneme segments.

As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to: (1) describe simultaneous communication; (2) explain the role of simultaneous communication in communication with persons who are hearing-impaired; (3) discuss methods of measuring perception of voice onset time with hearing-impaired listeners and with hearing listeners under filtered and noise conditions; and (4) specify the ability of listeners to perceive the voicing distinction in speech produced during simultaneous communication.