Consonant perception by normals in conditions of filtering.

Abstract

Consonant perception was investigated for 120 normal-hearing adults who listened to 16 consonants in a phrase context and made similarity judgements of 256 diadic stimulus pairs on a 9-point equal-appearing interval scale. Stimuli were presented at subjects' most comfortable listening levels in 3 low-pass filtered and one nonfiltered conditions. Subjects' ratings were converted to 16 X 16 full symmetric similarity matrices and submitted to INDSCAL analyses. Results revealed perceptual features common to all groups, as well as group-specific features (i.e., sibilancy, stop/continuancy, and place for nonfiltered; plosive and place for 4000-Hz low-pass; stop/continuancy and place for 2000-Hz low-pass; and voicing and stop/continuancy for 500-Hz low-pass). These results were similar to those found earlier for hearing-impaired subjects having sensorineural losses compatible with these frequency cut-offs.