The use of confusion patterns to evaluate the neural basis for concurrent vowel identification

Normal-hearing listeners take advantage of differences in fundamental frequency (F0) to segregate competing talkers. Computational modeling using an F0-based segregation algorithm and auditory-nerve temporal responses captures the gradual improvement in concurrent-vowel identification with increasing F0 difference. This result has been taken to suggest that F0-based segregation is the basis for this improvement; however, evidence suggests that other factors may also contribute. The present study further tested models of concurrent-vowel identification by evaluating their ability to predict the specific confusions made by listeners. Measured human confusions consisted of at most one to three confusions per vowel pair, typically from an error in only one of the two vowels. An improvement due to F0 difference was correlated with spectral differences between vowels; however, simple models based on acoustic and cochlear spectral patterns predicted some confusions not made by human listeners. In contrast, a neural temporal model was better at predicting listener confusion patterns. However, the full F0-based segregation algorithm using these neural temporal analyses was inconsistent across F0 difference in capturing listener confusions, being worse for smaller differences. The inability of this commonly accepted model to fully account for listener confusions suggests that other factors besides F0 segregation are likely to contribute.