Speech perception

Speech perception is explored across various disciplines, integrating linguistic and phonetic research to examine perception and comprehension within the communicative chain. Since the 1950s, studies have adopted an articulatory-acoustic-perceptual approach, yet a clear, language-specific description of the speech perception process remains elusive. The author, a senior researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, addresses general speech perception and its practical applications. She investigates the mechanisms of perception, including the elementary perceptual unit, hierarchical models, invariance, and word detection. Additionally, she examines the perceptual properties of Hungarian speech sounds and suprasegmental elements, the process of lexical access, and the development of perception in young children. Her findings led to the creation of two test series for assessing children’s hearing and speech abilities, including the G-O-H system, which utilizes high-quality synthetic speech to evaluate hearing mechanisms, and the GMP, an age-specific test for assessing speech perception in children aged 3 to 10. The book concludes with results from tests conducted on hundreds of children. The work emphasizes the necessity of reliable descriptions of language-specific characteristics for establishing a language-independent symbolic model of speech perception and highlights the practical importance of evaluating young children's