Consonant identification using temporal fine structure and recovered envelope cues

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 135; no. 4; pp. 2078 - 2090
• Main Authors: Swaminathan, Jayaganesh, Reed, Charlotte M, Desloge, Joseph G, Braida, Louis D, Delhorne, Lorraine A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-04-2014
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Adolescent; Adult; Audiometry, Speech; Cues; Female; Humans; Male; Psychoacoustics; Speech Acoustics; Speech Perception; Time Factors; Voice Quality; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4865920

The contribution of recovered envelopes (RENVs) to the utilization of temporal-fine structure (TFS) speech cues was examined in normal-hearing listeners. Consonant identification experiments used speech stimuli processed to present TFS or RENV cues. Experiment 1 examined the effects of exposure and presentation order using 16-band TFS speech and 40-band RENV speech recovered from 16-band TFS speech. Prior exposure to TFS speech aided in the reception of RENV speech. Performance on the two conditions was similar (∼50%-correct) for experienced listeners as was the pattern of consonant confusions. Experiment 2 examined the effect of varying the number of RENV bands recovered from 16-band TFS speech. Mean identification scores decreased as the number of RENV bands decreased from 40 to 8 and were only slightly above chance levels for 16 and 8 bands. Experiment 3 examined the effect of varying the number of bands in the TFS speech from which 40-band RENV speech was constructed. Performance fell from 85%- to 31%-correct as the number of TFS bands increased from 1 to 32. Overall, these results suggest that the interpretation of previous studies that have used TFS speech may have been confounded with the presence of RENVs.