Subjects were asked to identify dichotically competing pairs of CV syllables and two types of acoustically comparable nonspeech sounds. Dichotic signals were presented with onset asynchronies ranging from 0 to 150 msec. Subjects identified lagging signals more accurately and reported them as clearer than the leading signals at asynchronies between 30 and 75 msec. This advantage for the lagging signal was larger, more reliable, and had a different form for the speech sounds than for the nonspeech sounds. Similarities in the pattern of results for speech and nonspeech were interpreted in terms of the forward-, backward-, and simultaneous-masking effects occurring early in the central processing of auditory events. The differences in speech and nonspeech results, on the other hand, were seen as reflecting the particular sensitivity of later stages of speech processing to the masking effects. This sensitivity may be related to the way in which the phonetic message is encoded in the sound stream and the special speech processing occasioned by this encoding. Subject Classification: 70.30; 65.58; 65.75.
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Robert Porter (1975) studied this question.