title: Roles of voice onset time and F0 in stop consonant voicing perception: effects of masking noise and low-pass filtering.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The contributions of voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) were evaluated for the perception of voicing in syllable-initial stop consonants in words that were low-pass filtered and/or masked by speech-shaped noise. It was expected that listeners would rely less on VOT and more on F0 in these degraded conditions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty young listeners with normal hearing identified modified natural speech tokens that varied by VOT and F0 in several conditions of low-pass filtering and masking noise. Stimuli included /b/-/p/ and /d/-/t/ continua that were presented in separate blocks. Identification results were modeled using mixed-effects logistic regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When speech was filtered and/or masked by noise, listeners' voicing perceptions were driven less by VOT and more by F0. Speech-shaped masking noise exerted greater effects on the /b/-/p/ contrast, while low-pass filtering exerted greater effects on the /d/-/t/ contrast, consistent with the acoustics of these contrasts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Listeners can adjust their use of acoustic-phonetic cues in a dynamic way that is appropriate for challenging listening conditions; cues that are less influential in ideal conditions can gain priority in challenging conditions.
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. mwinn83@gmail.com
authors.forename: Matthew B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Winn
authors.forename: Monita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chatterjee
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Idsardi
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013997:Time Factors; D014831:Voice; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: bandwidth; noise; speech perception; voicing contrast