Mandatory dichotic integration of second-formant information: Contralateral sine bleats have predictable effects on consonant place judgments

Abstract

Speech-on-speech informational masking arises because the interferer disrupts target processing (e.g., capacity limitations) or corrupts it (e.g., intrusions into the target percept); the latter should produce predictable errors. Listeners identified the consonant in monaural buzz-excited three-formant analogues of approximant-vowel syllables, forming a place of articulation series (/w/-/l/-/j/). There were two 11-member series; the vowel was either high-front or low-back. Series members shared formant-amplitude contours, fundamental frequency, and F1+F3 frequency contours; they were distinguished solely by the F2 frequency contour before the steady portion. Targets were always presented in the left ear. For each series, F2 frequency and amplitude contours were also used to generate interferers with altered source properties—sine-wave analogues of F2 (sine bleats) matched to their buzz-excited counterparts. Accompanying each series member with a fixed mismatched sine bleat in the contralateral ear produced systematic and predictable effects on category judgments; these effects were usually largest for bleats involving the fastest rate or greatest extent of frequency change. Judgments of isolated sine bleats using the three place labels were often unsystematic or arbitrary. These results indicate that informational masking by interferers involved corruption of target processing as a result of mandatory dichotic integration of F2 information, despite the grouping cues disfavoring this integration.