Knowledge Bank

In speech perception, identification of place of articulation is often dependent upon formant transitions (frequency changes in vocal resonances). A number of experiments have shown that the alveolar and velar place distinction in initial stop consonants (/d/ and /g/) can be cued by the slope of the third formant (F3) transition. Previous studies have established that these place distinctions can be made with both actual and “virtual” transitions. However, the question remains as to the place at which this auditory processing takes place: Does it occur in the auditory periphery or as a function of central auditory processing? The experiment presented here addressed the extent to which the perception of synthetic /da/-/ga/ syllables could be cued by virtual transitions in both diotic and dichotic conditions. Both virtual and actual F3 transitions produced similar identification functions but the efficacy of the virtual transition was somewhat reduced in the dichotic condition.