Dichotic intensity trade for stops with differing vowels.

The effect of unilateral intensity variation on the interaction of dichotically presented stop-vowels has been shown to result in a reciprocal performance trade between the ear receiving the attenuated signal and the unaffected ear [Brady-Wood and Shankweiler, Haskins Labs Stat. Rpt. 34, 119-126 (1973); Cullen et al., Brain Lang. 1, 307-322 (1974)]. These studies, however, employed only like vowel pairings. The study reported here employed the vowels [æ, i, u] plus the stops [b, d, g] to investigate intensity trade with differing vowels and stop formant transitions. Trading was observed for all pairings, although distorted in some cases by performance ceiling and floor effects. Other results suggest factors in addition to acoustic overlap enter into performance limits and trading relationships observed in dichotic speech studies. [Work supported in part by NH 11647-01 and NIGMS SF I-F03-GM-52343.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]