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Auditory coding, cues, and coherence in phonetic perception

J R Sawusch¹, D A Gagnon

¹Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo 14260, USA.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance

|June 1, 1995

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Listeners can perceive speech-like sound categories even without speech training. This study demonstrates that abstract auditory codes support both speech and nonspeech auditory perception, challenging previous assumptions.

Area of Science:

Auditory perception
Speech perception
Psychoacoustics

Background:

Previous research indicated speech labels are necessary for categorical perception of speech-like sounds.
Nonspeech listeners struggled to consistently classify acoustic stimuli analogous to speech sounds (/la/-/ra/).

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if nonspeech auditory training can induce categorical perception in adult listeners.
To determine if learned auditory categories generalize to new phonetic contexts.
To identify auditory attributes crucial for distinguishing speech-like sounds.

Main Methods:

Adult listeners underwent a novel training and testing procedure using nonspeech auditory stimuli.
Listeners were trained on /la/-/ra/ tone analogs and tested on their classification consistency.

Related Experiment Videos

Generalization was assessed using a new /li/-/ri/ tone analog series.

Main Results:

Listeners successfully classified /la/-/ra/ tone analogs, exhibiting categorical perception.
Training generalized to the /li/-/ri/ tone analog series.
A specific set of auditory attributes quantitatively predicted classification performance for both series.

Conclusions:

Categorical perception of speech-like sounds can be achieved through nonspeech auditory training.
Abstract auditory codes underpin both speech and nonspeech auditory categorization.
Findings support models positing a universal auditory coding mechanism for perception.