On discrimination of relative onset times
P. J. Bensen, T. Dean Clack · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1979
Voice-onset time is a relevant cue to the voice-voiceless distinction in synthetic initial stop consonant perception. Studies with infants, adults, and animals have all shown the importance of the relative onset times between components of speech signals. Such unanimity could indicate the operation of a basic perceptual mechanism as suggested by Pisoni [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 61, 1352–1361 (1977)]. He used “speech-like” stimuli consisting of paired tone (500:1500 Hz) differing in onset times, and found that some listeners produce ABX discriminations with peaks in the vicinity of ±20 ms lead-lag intervals. The purpose of this study is exploration of other frequency:intensity combinations, e.g., the second and third harmonics of 250, 500, and 1000 Hz varied over the 50-to-90 dB SPL range. The results are discussed with respect to masking, and the discriminability of differences in temporal order of high-frequency versus lower-frequency components.