ABSTRACT
For many years, speech researchers have been interested in the differences in perception between speech and nonspeech signals. Early studies revealed marked differences in the manner in which speech sounds were discriminated suggesting two very different modes of response, a speech mode and a nonspeech mode. Recent studies using nonspeech control patterns have raised questions about these earlier interpretations and have provided the basis for explaining several phenomena in speech perception by means of more general principles of complex auditory pattern perception. This paper summarizes the philosophy behind these nonspeech comparisons and describes two recent studies, one on temporal order perception and the other on the perception of the duration of rapid spectrum changes. Both show commonalities between speech perception and the perception of complex nonspeech patterns.
