Auditory segregation of vowel-like sounds with static and dynamic spectral properties

Experiments were conducted to determine the extent to which a fundamental frequency or formant frequency transition influenced segregation of a simultaneous pair of single-formant harmonic complexes. Results showed that even a minute transition facilitated segregation. The effect was larger for formant frequency than fundamental frequency transitions. It is concluded that dynamic aspects of speech must be taken into account when explaining auditory scene analysis by humans and when designing computational scene analysis methods.