title: Detectability of words and nonwords in two kinds of noise.
abstract: Recent models of speech perception emphasize the possibility of interactions among different processing levels. There is evidence that the lexical status of an utterance (i.e., whether it is a meaningful word or not) may influence earlier stages of perceptual analysis. To test how far down such "top-down" influences might penetrate, an investigation was conducted to determine whether there is a difference in detectability of words and nonwords masked by amplitude-modulated or unmodulated broadband noise. The results were negative, suggesting either that the stages of perceptual analysis engaged in the detection task are impermeable to lexical top-down effects, or that the lexical level was not sufficiently activated to have any facilitative effect on perception.
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut 06511-6695.
authors.forename: B H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Repp
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Frost
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception