Al's Experiment

["Albert Bregman, Tel: 514-398-6103" <IN09@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

EXCELLENT QUESTION, JONT.  IF THE SINUSOIDAL FORMANTS, TAKEN AS
A GROUP, HAD AN OVERALL LOUDNESS THAT CONTRASTED WITH OTHER
CONCURRENT SOUDS' LOUDNESSES, THIS WOULD IMPLY THAT THEY HAD
FUSED.  TWO PROBLEMS, HOWEVER: (A) HOW TO MEASURE THIS, (2) WOULD
IT IMPLY THAT THE FUSION HAD TAKEN PLACE BECAUSE OF THE SPEECHINESS?

THERE MAY ALSO BE MORE THAN ONE LEVEL OF FUSION.  THE SET OF SINUSOIDS
MAY BE EXPERIENCED AS A UNIT, BUT A UNIT WITH PARTS TO IT.
 - AL

------------------------------- Original Message -------------------------------
When listening to speech, one may easily assign a loudness to the speech.
When two speakers, or a speaker in noise, is listened to, one may also
assign loudness to the noise, or to one of the speakers. However it is
difficult to assign loudness to the complex (i.e. the speech + noise).
Is this not a form of streaming, the fact that the speech is fused as
a whole? Are the three tones, at the formants, fused in the same manner?
Jont Allen