Voiceless-Versus-Voiced Consonant-Vowel Perception in Dichotic and Monotic Listening

Abstract

We had previously reported [J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 45, 299 (A) (1969)] that in dichotic listening to consonant-vowel (CV) utterances in natural speech, more voiceless consonants were correctly perceived than voiced consonants. In that experiment, the voiceless CVs had a slightly higher fundamental frequency than the voiced; therefore, synthetic CVs with uniform fundamental frequency and duration were used in the present experiment. Twenty normal right-handed females listened to simultaneous (±212 msec) (stop+/a/) synthetic nonsense syllables both monotically and dichotically. In addition to the expected right-ear laterality effect in dichotic listening, we confirmed our previous finding: dichotically, voiceless consonants predominated (73% vs 48%). Monotically, voiced consonants were most often heard correctly (60% vs 47%). An explanation related to onset of change from aperiodic to periodic portions of voiceless vs voiced utterances is presented. [We are grateful to Arthur Abramson and Lee Lisker for the use of theiry synthetic speech material. Supported in part by NINDS.]