Discrimination and identification of voicing and place contrasts in aphasic patients

Abstract

Aphasic patients and controls were given discrimination and identification tasks using synthesized stop‐initial CV syllables. Three different seven‐step continua were used as stimuli: voicing (bee‐pea); place (bee‐dee); and vowel (bee‐bow). All subjects were given both tasks for each continuum. The aphasic patients were devided into a good and a moderate comprehension group on the basis of their scores on an auditory language comprehension test. In comparison to the controls, aphasics with moderate comprehension had difficulty perceiving voicing and place contrasts, while aphasics with good comprehension generally had difficulty with place contrasts only. There were no group differences on the vowel tasks. The majority of the subjects either discriminated and identified the stimuli, did not discriminate or identify the stimuli, or discriminated but did not identify the stimuli. A small number of subjects could not discriminate but could identify the stimuli, mainly on the voicing continuum.