Auditory and Visual Influences on Phonemic Restoration

Abstract

Phonemic restoration was studied using a version of Samuel's (1981a) psychophysical paradigm. We examined the influence of specific acoustic correlates of voicing and place of articulation on phonemic restoration (d') and response bias (Beta). The influence of a higher-level, phonotactic constraint was also examined. All of the stimuli were presented in both auditory-only and auditory-visual conditions, allowing the investigation of potential benefits of vision on phonemic restoration. The results support the predictions of an interactive-activation model, combining both top-down and bottom-up factors. As predicted, voicing and place of articulation significantly affected d': Voiceless stop consonants received greater restoration than voiced stops, and alveolar stops were less restorable than bilabial and velar stops. The phonotactic, top-down constraint affected neither d' nor Beta. Visual information, however, appeared to reduce the bias to report an item as intact.