Perception of speech sounds with alternate formants presented to opposite ears

The perception of speech syllables with alternate formants presented to opposite ears has been investigated. Using synthesized speech and normal-hearing subjects, it was found that this mode of presentation reduced the recognition scores with stop consonants by about 6%, semivowels by about 4%, and fricatives by about 5%, compared with binaural presentation. Vowel recognition, on the other hand, was not significantly reduced.