Abstract
Auditory adaptation is thought to reduce the perceptual impact of static spectral energy and increase sensitivity to spectral change. Research suggests that this adaptation helps listeners to extract stable speech cues across different talkers, despite inter-talker spectral variations caused by differing vocal tract acoustics. This adaptation may also be involved in compensation for distortions caused by transmission channels more generally (e.g. distortions caused by the room or loudspeaker through which a sound has passed). The magnitude of this adaptation and its ecological importance has not been established. The physiological and psychological mechanisms behind adaptation are also not well understood. The current research aimed to confirm that adaptation to transmission channel spectrum occurs when listening to speech produced though two types of transmission channel: loudspeakers and rooms. The loudspeaker is analogous to the vocal tract of a talker, imparting resonances onto a sound source which reaches the listener both directly and via reflections. The room-affected speech however, reaches the listener only via reflections – there is no direct path. Larger adaptation to the spectrum of the room was found, compared to adaptation to the spectrum of the loudspeaker. It appears that when listening to speech, mechanisms of adaptation to room reflections, and adaptation to loudspeaker/vocal tract spectrum, may be different.