Frequency and duration effects on perceptions of rise-time rate

The ability to accurately perceive the acoustic correlate of glottal attack, phonatory onset rise-time rate, can be diagnostically critical for speech pathologists conducting voice function examinations. Signal onset duration may serve as a cue in these perceptions because an inverse relationship exists between onset duration and rise-time rate. Other acoustic information such as frequency, present during voice initiation, might also affect phonatory onset rise-time perceptions. This study was designed to determine if listeners can detect duration related rise-time rate differences in the presence of variable frequency. Listeners accurately detected rise-time rates associated with onset duration differences independent of the frequency variable. A significant duration effect was revealed with no frequency or variable interaction effects. All judgement means were significantly different from one another. It was determined that as stimulus onset duration decreased, onset rise-time rate was perceived to occur more rapidly.