Vowel discrimination by hearing infants as a function of number of spectral channels

Reduced spectral resolution negatively impacts speech perception, particularly perception of vowels and consonant place. This study assessed impact of number of spectral channels on vowel discrimination by 6-month-old infants with normal hearing by comparing three listening conditions: Unprocessed s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2014-05, Vol.135 (5), p.3017-3024
Main Authors: Warner-Czyz, Andrea D, Houston, Derek M, Hynan, Linda S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation - instrumentation
Acoustic Stimulation - methods
Adult
Cues
Discrimination, Psychological - physiology
Educational Status
Female
Humans
Income
Infant
Male
Mothers - statistics & numerical data
Pattern Recognition, Physiological - physiology
Perceptual Distortion - physiology
Phonetics
Psychoacoustics
Psychology, Child
Random Allocation
Sound Spectrography
Speech Discrimination Tests
Speech Perception - physiology
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Summary:Reduced spectral resolution negatively impacts speech perception, particularly perception of vowels and consonant place. This study assessed impact of number of spectral channels on vowel discrimination by 6-month-old infants with normal hearing by comparing three listening conditions: Unprocessed speech, 32 channels, and 16 channels. Auditory stimuli (/ti/ and /ta/) were spectrally reduced using a noiseband vocoder and presented to infants with normal hearing via visual habituation. Results supported a significant effect of number of channels on vowel discrimination by 6-month-old infants. No differences emerged between unprocessed and 32-channel conditions in which infants looked longer during novel stimulus trials (i.e., discrimination). The 16-channel condition yielded a significantly different pattern: Infants demonstrated no significant difference in looking time to familiar vs novel stimulus trials, suggesting infants cannot discriminate /ti/ and /ta/ with only 16 channels. Results support effects of spectral resolution on vowel discrimination. Relative to published reports, young infants need more spectral detail than older children and adults to perceive spectrally degraded speech. Results have implications for development of perception by infants with hearing loss who receive auditory prostheses.
ISSN:0001-4966
1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.4870700