Audiovisual perception of voicing with age in quiet and cafe noise

Abstract

Research has shown that voicing is difficult to discern in noisy environments. While voicing may be difficult to resolve from visual cues, acoustic cues for voicing are relatively robust. This study addresses these factors with normally aging audiovisual perception. Identification responses were gathered with 19–30-year-old and 49–60-year-old adults for audiovisual (AV) CVs differing in voicing and consonant place of articulation. Materials were presented in quiet and in cafe noise (SNR=0 dB) as audio-only (A), visual-only (V), congruent AV, and incongruent AV. Results show a tendency toward use of visual information with age and noise for consonant place of articulation. Notably for voicing, incongruent AV materials that had one voiced component, regardless if it was A or V that was voiced, were consistently perceived as voiced in both age groups and regardless of noise. Only if the A and V components were both voiceless was the syllable perceived as voiceless. These findings indicate the influence of age and noise in the use of perceptual information to identify place of articulation. That voicing is robustly salient from either audio or visual information, despite the unlikely presence of strong visual cues for voicing, indicates a possible bias toward the perception of voicing.