Abstract
Speech-on-speech informational masking arises because the interferer disrupts target processing (e.g., capacity limitations) or corrupts it (e.g., intrusions into the target percept); the latter should produce predictable errors. Listeners identified the consonant in monaural buzz-excited three-formant analogues of approximant-vowel syllables, forming a place of articulation series (/w/-/l/-/j/). There were two 11-member series; the vowel was either high-front or low-back. Series members shared formant-amplitude contours, fundamental frequency, and F1+F3 frequency contours; they were distinguished solely by the F2 frequency contour before the steady portion. Targets were always presented in the left ear. For each series, F2 frequency and amplitude contours were also used to generate interferers with altered source properties-sine-wave analogues of F2 (sine bleats) matched to their buzz-excited counterparts. Accompanying each series member with a fixed mismatched sine bleat in the contralateral ear produced systematic and predictable effects on category judgments; these effects were usually largest for bleats involving the fastest rate or greatest extent of frequency change. Judgments of isolated sine bleats using the three place labels were often unsystematic or arbitrary. These results indicate that informational masking by interferers involved corruption of target processing as a result of mandatory dichotic integration of F2 information, despite the grouping cues disfavoring this integration.
Highlights
Interferer may intrude into the target percept—or from capacity limitations on the resources available for information processing (e.g., Shinn-Cunningham, 2008)
Judgments of isolated sine bleats using the three place labels were often unsystematic or arbitrary. These results indicate that informational masking by interferers involved corruption of target processing as a result of mandatory dichotic integration of F2 information, despite the grouping cues disfavoring this integration
The F2C paradigm was originally conceptualized as involving competition between the target F2 and the extraneous formant to form a coherent perceptual group with F1 and F3, such that any fall in intelligibility occurred because F2 was displaced from the perceptual organization of the target speech (Remez et al, 1994; Roberts et al, 2010)
Summary
Interferer may intrude into the target percept—or from capacity limitations on the resources available for information processing (e.g., Shinn-Cunningham, 2008). Berlin et al (1976) reported that dichotic interference can be caused by an isolated formant, typically involving an initial transition followed by a steady portion (known as a “bleat”), derived from another syllable This observation was investigated by Porter and Whittaker (1980) using a series of synthetic twoformant consonant-vowel (CV) syllables spanning the percepts [bae], [dae], and [gae]. Using a different F0 for the contralateral bleat might be expected to decrease the likelihood of integration, there is evidence that introducing a difference in F0 between formants has only a limited effect on the identification of synthetic CV syllables (Darwin, 1981; Gardner et al, 1989) and a 4-semitone DF0 does not prevent extraneous formants causing substantial IM when presented in the opposite ear to a target sentence (Summers and Roberts, 2020; see Summers et al, 2010, 2017).
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