Abstract
Speech sounds are perceived relative to spectral properties of surrounding speech. For instance, target words that are ambiguous between /bɪt/ (with low F1) and /bɛt/ (with high F1) are more likely to be perceived as “bet” after a “low F1” sentence, but as “bit” after a “high F1” sentence. However, it is unclear how these spectral contrast effects (SCEs) operate in multi-talker listening conditions. Recently, Feng and Oxenham (J.Exp.Psychol.-Hum.Percept.Perform. 44(9), 1447–1457, 2018b) reported that selective attention affected SCEs to a small degree, using two simultaneously presented sentences produced by a single talker. The present study assessed the role of selective attention in more naturalistic “cocktail party” settings, with 200 lexically unique sentences, 20 target words, and different talkers. Results indicate that selective attention to one talker in one ear (while ignoring another talker in the other ear) modulates SCEs in such a way that only the spectral properties of the attended talker influences target perception. However, SCEs were much smaller in multi-talker settings (Experiment 2) than those in single-talker settings (Experiment 1). Therefore, the influence of SCEs on speech comprehension in more naturalistic settings (i.e., with competing talkers) may be smaller than estimated based on studies without competing talkers.
Highlights
Speech is a highly variable signal: the same word can sound very differently depending on the talker’s gender, vocal tract, mood, and even the room acoustics
The first formant track of the filter model of each carrier sentence was increased or decreased by 20%, after which the filter model was recombined with the source model, resulting in a “high F1” with greater energy in the higher F1 range and a “low F1” version of each carrier sentence with greater energy in the lower F1 range
The difference between the orange and blue lines indicates an influence of the preceding carrier: carriers with greater energy in the lower F1 range (“Low F1”; blue/dark gray lines) biased perception towards /ɛ/, whereas carriers with greater energy in the higher F1 range (“High F1”; orange/light gray lines) biased perception towards /ɪ/
Summary
Speech is a highly variable signal: the same word can sound very differently depending on the talker’s gender, vocal tract, mood, and even the room acoustics. One perceptual principle that listeners rely on to deal with part of this variation is spectral contrast. When the spectral content of a given carrier sentence differs from a following target sound, the auditory. SCEs are sharply reduced in multi-talker listening conditions compared to single-talker settings – irrespective of the spectral characteristics of the competing talker’s speech. Empirical evidence suggests that SCEs are not specific to speech or language, as they are induced by filtered noise (Watkins & Makin, 1994) and pure tones (Holt, 2005, 2006)
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