Dissimilarity ratings of English consonants by normally-hearing and hearing-impaired individuals.

Perceptual patterns in rating dissimilarities among 24 CVs were investigated for a group of normal-hearing and two groups of hearing-impaired subjects (one group with flat, and one group with sloping, sensorineural losses). Stimuli were presented binaurally at most comfortable loudness level and subjects rated the 576 paired stimuli on a 1-7 equal-appearing interval scale. Ratings were submitted to individual group and combined INDSCAL analyses to describe features used by the subjects in their perception of the speech stimuli. Results revealed features such as sibilant, sonorant, plosive and place. Furthermore, normal and hearing-impaired subjects used similar features, and subjects' weightings of features were relatively independent of their audiometric configurations. Results are compared to those of previous studies.