Editing Perception (section)

==== Speech ====
{{main|Speech perception}}
[[File:Spectrogram_of_I_owe_you.png|right|thumb|Though the phrase "I owe you" can be heard as three distinct words, a [[spectrogram]] reveals no clear boundaries.]]
''Speech perception'' is the process by which [[spoken language]] is heard, interpreted and understood. Research in this field seeks to understand how human listeners recognize the sound of speech (or ''[[phonetics]]'') and use such information to understand spoken language.

Listeners manage to perceive words across a wide range of conditions, as the sound of a word can vary widely according to words that surround it and the [[tempo]] of the speech, as well as the physical characteristics, [[Accent (dialect)|accent]], [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]], and mood of the speaker. [[Reverberation]], signifying the persistence of sound after the sound is produced, can also have a considerable impact on perception. Experiments have shown that people automatically compensate for this effect when hearing speech.<ref name="eop_constancy" /><ref name="Watkins2010">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACkNL-G7gUUC&pg=PA440|title=The Neurophysiological Bases of Auditory Perception|last1=Watkins|first1=Anthony J.|last2=Raimond|first2=Andrew|last3=Makin|first3=Simon J.|date=23 March 2010|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4419-5685-9|editor-last=Lopez-Poveda|editor-first=Enrique A.|page=440|chapter=Room reflection and constancy in speech-like sounds: Within-band effects|access-date=26 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111109163241/http://books.google.com/books?id=ACkNL-G7gUUC&pg=PA440|archive-date=9 November 2011|url-status=live|bibcode=2010nbap.book.....L}}</ref>

The process of perceiving speech begins at the level of the sound within the auditory signal and the process of [[Hearing (sense)|audition]]. The initial auditory signal is compared with visual information—primarily lip movement—to extract acoustic cues and phonetic information. It is possible other sensory modalities are integrated at this stage as well.<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwY15naRiFgC&q=%22Primacy+of+Multimodal+Speech+Perception%22&pg=PA51|title=The Handbook of Speech Perception|last=Rosenblum|first=Lawrence D.|editor1-last=Pisoni|editor1-first=David|page=51|chapter=Primacy of Multimodal Speech Perception|date=15 April 2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-75677-5|editor2-last=Remez|editor2-first=Robert}}</ref> This speech information can then be used for higher-level language processes, such as [[word recognition]].

Speech perception is not necessarily uni-directional. Higher-level language processes connected with [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], [[syntax]], and/or [[semantics]] may also interact with basic speech perception processes to aid in recognition of speech sounds.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Matthew H. |last2=Johnsrude |first2=Ingrid S. |title=Hearing speech sounds: Top-down influences on the interface between audition and speech perception |journal=Hearing Research |date=July 2007 |volume=229 |issue=1–2 |pages=132–147 |doi=10.1016/j.heares.2007.01.014|pmid=17317056 |s2cid=12111361 }}</ref> It may be the case that it is not necessary (maybe not even possible) for a listener to recognize [[phoneme]]s before recognizing higher units, such as words. In an experiment, professor Richard M. Warren replaced one phoneme of a word with a cough-like sound. His subjects restored the missing speech sound perceptually without any difficulty. Moreover, they were not able to accurately identify which phoneme had even been disturbed.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Warren|first=R. M.|year=1970|title=Restoration of missing speech sounds|journal=Science|volume=167|issue=3917|pages=392–393|doi=10.1126/science.167.3917.392|pmid=5409744|bibcode=1970Sci...167..392W|s2cid=30356740}}</ref>