Speech Perception and Auditory Impairment: The Roles of Temporal and Spectral Information

Impaired auditory processing represents an important test of what we understand about speech perception and its auditory basis. Although it is sometimes not appreciated, the difficulties that impaired audition produces in the perception of speech make it mandatory for any adequate theory of speech perception to take auditory processing into account. Furthermore, if our understanding of speech perception is sufficiently good, we might expect it to lead to the development of prosthetic processing techniques to improve the perception of speech by hearing-impaired people.