Linking verbal transformations to their causes.

The verbal transformation effect (VTE) is a perceptual phenomenon in which listeners report hearing illusory utterances when a spoken word is rapidly repeated for an extended period of time. The cause of the illusion was investigated by identifying regularities across the transformations that listeners reported and then testing hypotheses about the cause of those regularities. Variants of the standard transformation paradigm were used across 3 experiments to demonstrate that perceptual regrouping of the elements in the repeating utterance is 1 cause of the VTE. Findings also suggest that regrouping is influenced by whether the stimulus is perceived as speech or as nonspeech. Within the information-processing approach to perception, one method of inquiry is to investigate the causes of illusions, which are viewed as windows into the processes that operate during veridical perception. That is, illusions are temporary lesions (War-ren, 1968) of the perceptual system that reveal its inner workings. One illusion whose cause continues to elude researchers despite years of study is the verbal transformation effect (VTE; Warren, 1961b). The VTE is experienced while listening to a word repeat