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Interference: Path Lengths

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 21, 2025

A Two-interval Forced-choice Task for Multisensory Comparisons

A Two-interval Forced-choice Task for Multisensory Comparisons

Published on: November 9, 2018

High-resolution temporal weighting of interaural time differences in speech.

Lucas S Baltzell¹, Virginia Best¹

¹Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

|September 2, 2021

Summary

Perceptual weighting for spoken words shows that initial sounds are not always most important. Temporal weighting functions depend on acoustic changes throughout the entire word, not just the onset.

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Area of Science:

Auditory perception
Psychoacoustics
Speech processing

Background:

Previous research indicates interaural time differences (ITDs) at stimulus onset heavily influence lateralization for tones and clicks.
Modulated stimuli show increased perceptual weight for ITDs during modulation rise phases.
A prior study suggested "word-onset dominance" in speech perception based on limited data.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the temporal weighting functions (TWFs) for spoken words with greater temporal resolution.
To determine if "word-initial" onset dominance generalizes across different spoken words.
To explore the relationship between acoustic changes and perceptual weighting in speech lateralization.

Main Methods:

Measured TWFs for four spoken words: "two," "eight," "six," and "nine."
Applied ITDs independently to 30-ms stimulus bins.
Obtained lateralization judgments and derived TWFs using a hierarchical regression model.

Main Results:

"Word-initial" onset dominance was not consistently observed across all tested words.
Temporal weighting functions varied depending on acoustic characteristics throughout the stimulus.
Existing models failed to fully explain the observed perceptual weighting data.

Conclusions:

The assumption of a universal "word-onset dominance" in speech lateralization is not supported.
Auditory perception of speech lateralization is influenced by dynamic acoustic features across the entire utterance.
Further research is needed to develop models that accurately capture complex temporal weighting in speech perception.