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Between-Frequency and Between-Ear Gap Detections and Their Relation to Perception of Stop Consonants
Shuji Mori1, Kazuki Oyama, Yousuke Kikuchi
11Department of Informatics, Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; and 2Pioneer Corporation, Tokyo, Japan.
Objectives:
The objective of this study was to examine the hypothesis that between-channel gap detection, which includes between-frequency and between-ear gap detection, and perception of stop consonants, which is mediated by the length of voice-onset time (VOT), share common mechanisms, namely relative-timing operation in monitoring separate perceptual channels.
Design:
The authors measured gap detection thresholds and identification functions of /ba/ and /pa/ along VOT in 49 native young adult Japanese listeners. There were three gap detection tasks. In the between-frequency task, the leading and trailing markers differed in terms of center frequency (Fc). The leading marker was a broadband noise of 10 to 20,000 Hz. The trailing marker was a 0.5-octave band-passed noise of 1000-, 2000-, 4000-, or 8000-Hz Fc. In the between-ear task, the two markers were spectrally identical but presented to separate ears. In the within-frequency task, the two spectrally identical markers were presented to the same ear. The /ba/-/pa/ identification functions were obtained in a task in which the listeners were presented synthesized speech stimuli of varying VOTs from 10 to 46 msec and asked to identify them as /ba/ or /pa/.
Results:
The between-ear gap thresholds were significantly positively correlated with the between-frequency gap thresholds (except those obtained with the trailing marker of 4000-Hz Fc). The between-ear gap thresholds were not significantly correlated with the within-frequency gap thresholds, which were significantly correlated with all the between-frequency gap thresholds. The VOT boundaries and slopes of /ba/-/pa/ identification functions were not significantly correlated with any of these gap thresholds.
Conclusions:
There was a close relation between the between-ear and between-frequency gap detection, supporting the view that these two types of gap detection share common mechanisms of between-channel gap detection. However, there was no evidence for a relation between the perception of stop consonants and the between-frequency/ear gap detection in native Japanese speakers.
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