Abstract: This paper describes a number 0f objective experiments on recognition concerning particularly the relation between the messages received by the two ears. Rather than use steady tones or clicks (frequency or time-point signals) continuous speech is used, and the results interpreted in the main statistically.
Two types of test are reported:( a) the behavior of a listener when presented with two speech signals simultaneously (statistical filtering problem) and (b) behavior when different speech signals are presented to his two ears.
Comments:
Although this paper has been cited for over 3000 times, mostly in relation to the cocktail party problem, the two experiments described had more to do linguistic and statistical properties than acoustic properties, namely, the kind of cues such as onset and harmonicity in the framework of auditory scene analysis.
Carol also noted that there was not even a single figure, nor any quantitative analysis, in this classic paper, which nevertheless opened a big door for numerous subsequent studies. The paper was a testimony on the power of thinking.