Perceptual Integration of Linguistic and Non‐Linguistic Properties of Speech

Speech is a complex auditory signal that contains multiple layers of linguistic and non-linguistic structures. This chapter discusses empirical and theoretical work examining the extent to which linguistic and non-linguistic properties are independently processed and represented. It considers research examining the impact of socially conditioned and linguistically relevant variation on the perception of speech and reviews how familiarity with this lawful variation impacts listeners’ perception of both linguistic and non-linguistic forms. The chapter argues that variation due to talker and other factors is highly informative and has perceptual consequences for linguistic processing, this variation is integral to the representation and processing of spoken language, and that models of speech perception must necessarily include mechanisms for tracking and representing informative variation in linguistic form. A seminal demonstration of the dependence of talker recognition on phonetic instantiation comes from the investigation of talker identification from sinewave replicas of speech.