Detectability of words and nonwords in two kinds of noise

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Abstract
Recent models of speech perception emphasize the possibility of interactions among different processing levels. There is evidence that the lexical status of an utterance (i.e., whether it is a meaningful word or not) may influence earlier stages of perceptual analysis. To test how far down such ‘‘top-down’’ influences might penetrate, an investigation was conducted to determine whether there is a difference in detectability of words and nonwords masked by amplitude-modulated or unmodulated broadband noise. The results were negative, suggesting either that the stages of perceptual analysis engaged in the detection task are impermeable to lexical top-down effects, or that the lexical level was not sufficiently activated to have any facilitative effect on perception.

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