ABSTRACT
Our understanding of mechanisms employed in speech perception can be enhanced by understanding how we recognize sequences of other brief sounds. In addition, studies of speech perception can lead to deeper understanding of the general rules of auditory pattern perception. This reciprocity will be illustrated by examples drawn chiefly from two topics we have studied in our laboratory. The first major topic concerns the perception of an ordered series of sounds, whether consisting of phones, tones, or unrelated sounds. When the components are brief, each of these types of sequences can be organized into temporal compounds that are recognized globally without the need for resolution into constituent elements. To take an example involving speech, when listeners are presented with a sequence of isochronous steady-state vowels having durations corresponding to those occurring in speech, there is an obligatory organization into temporal compounds. The stimulus vowels cannot be identified; instead listeners report hearing syllables that either occur in words, or are themselves words. The rules governing these verbal organizations have led to hypotheses concerning the mechanisms and strategies that are normally used for comprehending speech. The second major topic describes in some detail three sophisticated mechanisms used to restore portions of nonverbal as well as verbal signals masked or replaced by extraneous sounds. These mechanisms are: (a) temporal induction (restoration of missing portions of a signal); (b) contralateral induction (restoration of a signal missing at one ear but present at the other); and (c) spectral restoration (restoration of missing frequency components of a signal).
