Some properties of auditory memory for rapid formant transitions

Abstract

In the three experiments reported here, subjects indicate whether two sequentially presented syllables, differing in the place of articulation of an initial stop consonant, are phonernically the same or not. The first experiment finds faster |ldsame" responses to acoustically identical pairs than to pairs that are phonemically identical but acoustically distinct. provided that the second syllable is presented within 400 msec of the first. This is interpreted as indicating the persistence of a memory which preserves auditory information about within-category distinctions. The third experiment shows that this advantage remains when a tone is interposed between the two syllables, but is removed when a brief vowel is similarly interposed. The second experiment presents the second syllable of each pair dichotically with a noise burst, and shows that the size of the right-ear advantage for this reaction time task is reduced when the result of comparisons based on this auditory memory is compatible with the required phonemic decision, but that the right-ear advantage is increased when auditory comparisons would contradict the phonemic relationship.