Perceptual Grouping of Speech Components Differing in Fundamental Frequency and Onset-Time
- 1 May 1981
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A
- Vol. 33 (2), 185-207
- https://doi.org/10.1080/14640748108400785
Abstract
Are there general auditory grouping principles that allow the sounds of a single speaker to be grouped together before phonetic categorisation? Four experiments are reported on the use made of a common fundamental frequency or a common starting time in grouping formants together to form phonetic categories. The first experiment shows that the perception of a vowel category is unaffected by formants being excited at different fundamentals or starting at 100-ms intervals. The second and third experiments show no effect of a different fundamental on the combination of the timbres of pairs of formants presented either binaurally or dichotically to form diphthongs. Onset-time also has no effect with binaural presentation. The fourth experiment finds both an effect of grouping formants by a common fundaental using formant trajectories that do not overlap in frequency, and also an effect of onset-time. Neither a common fundamental nor common onset-time is either a necessary or a sufficient condition for formants to be grouped into a common speech category, although they can be shown to exert an influence. Both these variables exert a considerable influence on the number of sounds that subjects report hearing, even under conditions where they do not influence the reported speech category, indicating a dissociation between mechanisms concerned with “how many” sound sources there are, and those concerned with “what” a source consists of.Keywords
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