Adaptation and contrast in the perception of voicing

Results of experiments using selective adaptation with stop consonants have been interpreted in terms of auditory feature detector fatigue, phonetic feature detector fatigue, and response contrast. In the present 2 experiments with 24 undergraduates, both a selective adaptation procedure and a procedure involving paired comparisons between successively presented stimuli were used to sort out these explanations. Results indicate that neither response contrast nor phonetic feature detection are involved in selective adaptation effects found for a voicing stop-consonant series. Results are interpreted as supporting the position that selective adaptation effects arise at an early, auditory level of processing that is responsive to the spectral overlap between adaptor and test items. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).