THE ROLE OF SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM AUDITORY STORAGE IN PROCESSING SPECTRAL RELATIONS FOR ADULT AND CHILD SPEECH

The processes involved in the perception of spectral change between th e nasal murmur and the vocalic transition for speakers of different ag es were assessed before and after disruption of the variation in spect ra between these elements. Three children, aged 3, 5, and 7, and an ad ult female and male produced consonant-vowel (CV) syllables consisting of either [m] or [n] followed by [i] or [u]. In one condition (spectr ally noncontiguous), the acoustic information surrounding the region o f spectral change was digitally removed and in another condition (spec trally contiguous) this portion of the signal was retained. In both of these conditions, intervals of silence ranging from 0 to 2000 ms were inserted between 50-ms segments of murmur and vocalic transition. The se gap duration conditions were then presented to adult listeners for the identification of the nasal. Across speakers, the results for the spectral contiguous condition support a primary mechanism in the perce ption of spectral relations that is mediated by processes. within shor t-term auditory memory, but the results for the spectral noncontiguous condition revealed little consistent support for either short-term or long-term memory processes.