Peter Bailey
Emeritus Reader

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Research
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Teaching

Biography

University of Sussex
BSc
University of Cambridge
PhD

Graduated in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex in 1970 then moved to Cambridge for a PhD. on the perception of speech. Came to York in 1977 after post-doctoral research on speech perception at the Queen's University, Belfast and Haskins Laboratories in New Haven. Has continued with research on speech and hearing, funded by grants from UK Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust. Retired in December 2010.

Overview

Perceptual organisation in Speech (with Brian Roberts, Aston University)

Most research on auditory scene analysis has focused on relatively simple sounds and has identified a number of general principles for the grouping of sound elements. However, at least as currently understood, these principles seem inadequate to explain the perceptual grouping of speech, because speech has acoustic properties that are diverse and rapidly changing. Furthermore, speech is a highly familiar stimulus, and so our auditory system has had the opportunity to learn about speech-specific properties that may assist in the successful perceptual grouping of speech. The aim of this project is to explore how much of our ability to segregate a talker’s speech from a sound mixture depends on general-purpose auditory grouping principles that are applicable to all sounds, and how much depends on grouping principles that are specific to speech sounds. The approach is to generate artificial speech-like stimuli with precisely controlled properties, to mix target utterances with carefully designed “competitors” that offer alternative grouping possibilities, and to measure how manipulating the acoustic properties of these competitors affects the ability of listeners to recognize the target utterance in the mixture.

Research group(s)

Perception and Action

Grants

Bailey, P. J. & Hill N. I. Perceptual discrimination of spectral shape. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (1998-2002)
Bailey, P. J., Snowling, M. J. & Hill N. I. Auditory processing deficits and dyslexia. Wellcome Trust (1999-2002)
Roberts, B. (Aston University) & Bailey, P. J. The perceptual organization of speech: Contributions of general and speech-specific factors. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2008-2011)

Collaborators

Brian Roberts
Nick Hill
Andrew Sach
Yvonne Griffiths
Maggie Snowling
David Wellsted
Quentin Summerfield
Isabella Paul
Padraig Kitterick
Sam Mathias

Supervision

John Seton (1990)
Kim Bevan (1991)
Nigel Holt (1997)
Andrew Sach (2000)
Sam Mathias (2010)

Selected publications

Summers, R. J., Bailey, P. J. and Roberts, B. (2017) Informational masking and the effects of differences in fundamental frequency and fundamental-frequency contour on phonetic integration in a formant ensemble. Hearing Research, 344, 295-303.

Summers, R. J., Bailey, P. J. and Roberts, B. (2016) Across-formant integration and speech intelligibility: Effects of acoustic source properties in the presence and absence of a contralateral interferer. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 140, 1227-1238.

Roberts, B., Summers, R. J. and Bailey, P. J. (2015) Acoustic source characteristics, across-formant integration, and speech intelligibility under competitive conditions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41, 680-691.

Roberts, B., Summers, R. J. and Bailey, P. J. (2014) Formant-frequency variation and informational masking of speech by extraneous formants: Evidence against dynamic and speech-specific acoustical constraints. Journal of experimental psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40, 1507–1525.

Roberts, B., Summers, R. J. and Bailey, P. J. (2013) Formant-frequency variation and its effects on across-formant grouping in speech perception. Advances in experimental medicine and biology, 787, 323-331.

Summers, R. J., Bailey, P. J. and Roberts, B. R. (2012) Effects of the rate of formant-frequency variation on the grouping of formants in speech perception. Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 13, 269-280 (published online 15 December 2011).

Mathias, S. R., Bailey, P. J., Semal, C. and Demany, L. (2011) A note about insensitivity to pitch-change direction. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130(4), EL129-EL134 (published online 8 September 2011).

Roberts, B. R., Summers, R. J. and Bailey, P. J. (2011) The intelligibility of noise-vocoded speech: Spectral information available from across-channel comparison of amplitude envelopes. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London: Biological Sciences, 278(1711), 1595-1600 (published online 10 November 2010).

Summers, R. J., Bailey, P. J. and Roberts, B. R. (2010) Effects of differences in fundamental frequency on across-formant grouping in speech perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128(6), 3667-3677.

Roberts, B. R., Summers, R. J. and Bailey, P. J. (2010) The perceptual organization of sine-wave speech under competitive conditions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128(2), 804-817.

Mathias, S. R., Micheyl, C. and Bailey, P. J. (2010) Stimulus uncertainty and insensitivity to the direction of pitch change. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127(5), 3026-3037.

Kitterick, P. K., Bailey, P. J. and Summerfield, A. Q. (2010) Benefits of knowing who, where, and when in multi-talker listening. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127(4), 2498-2508.

Lipp, R., Kitterick, P., Summerfield, Q., Bailey, P. J. and Paul-Jordanov, I. (2010) Concurrent sound segregation based on inharmonicity and onset asynchrony. Neuropsychologia, 48(5), 1417-1425.

Kumar, S., Forster, H., Bailey, P. J. and Griffiths, T. D. (2008) Mapping unpleasantness of sounds to their auditory representation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124(6), 3810-3817.

Full publications list

Bailey, P. J. and Haggard, M. P. (1973) Perception and production: some correlations on voicing of an initial stop. Language and Speech, 16, 189-195.

Bailey, P. J., Summerfield, Q. and Dorman, M.F. (1977) On the identification of sine-wave analogues of certain speech sounds. Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research, SR 51/52, 1-25.

Bailey, P. J. and Haggard, M. P. (1980) Perception-production relations in the voicing contrast for initial stops in three-year-olds. Phonetica, 37, 377-396.

Bailey, P. J. and Summerfield, Q. (1980) Information in speech: observations on the perception of [s]-stop clusters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 6, 536-563.

Summerfield, Q., Bailey, P. J. and Erikson, D. (1980) A note on perceptuo-motor adaptation of speech. Journal of Phonetics, 8, 491-499.

Summerfield, Q., Bailey, P. J., Seton, J.C. and Dorman, M.F. (1981) Fricative envelope parameters and silent intervals in distinguishing 'slit' and 'split'. Phonetica, 38, 181-192.

Summerfield, Q., Foster, J., Tyler, R. and Bailey, P. J. (1985) Influences of formant bandwidth and auditory frequency selectivity on identification of place of articulation in stop consonants. Speech Communication, 4, 213-229.

Bailey, P. J. (1988) Influences of contextual and local temporal information on perception of a stop consonant after [s]. Phonetica, 45, 56-69.

Bailey, P. J. and Herrmann, P. (1993) A re-examination of duplex perception evoked by intensity differences. Perception and Psychophysics, 54, 20-32.

Roberts, B. and Bailey, P. J. (1993) Spectral pattern and the perceptual fusion of harmonics I: The role of temporal factors. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 94, 3153-3164.

Roberts, B. and Bailey, P. J. (1993) Spectral pattern and the perceptual fusion of harmonics II: A special status for added components? Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 94, 3165-3177.

Quinlan, P. T. & Bailey, P. J. (1995) An examination of attentional control in the auditory modality – further evidence for auditory orienting. Perception and Psychophysics, 57, 614-628.

Morris, J., Franklin, S., Ellis, A. W., Turner, J. E. & Bailey, P. J. (1996) Remediating a speech perception deficit in an aphasic patient. Aphasiology, 10(2), 137-158.

Roberts, B. and Bailey, P. J. (1996) Regularity of spectral pattern and its effects on the perceptual fusion of harmonics. Perception and Psychophysics, 58(2), 289-299.

Roberts, B. and Bailey, P. J. (1996) Spectral regularity as a factor distinct from harmonic relations in auditory grouping. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22(3), 604-614.

Hill, N. I., Bailey, P. J. and Hodgson, P. (1997) A probe-signal study of auditory discrimination of complex tones. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 102(4), 2291-2296.

Hill, N. I. and Bailey, P. J. (1998) Relative intensity comparisons between a tone and spectrally-remote noise: effects of onset asynchrony. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 103(2), 1075-1079.

Bailey, P. J., Hodgson, P. and Hill, N. I. (1998) On the strategic weighting of spectral information in consonant identification. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 51A(2), 393-407.

Hill, N. I. and Bailey, P. J. (1998) Across-channel intensity discrimination in the presence of an interferer. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 104(2), 1008-1012.

Hill, N.I., Bailey, P.J., Griffiths, Y.M., and Snowling, M.J. (1999). Frequency acuity and binaural masking release in dyslexic listeners. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106(6), L53-L58.

Sach, A., Hill, N.I., and Bailey, P.J. (2000) Auditory spatial attention using interaural time differences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26(2), 717-729.

Hill, N. I. and Bailey, P. J. (2000) Profile analysis of harmonic complexes: Effects of mistuning the target. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107(4), 2291-2294.

Marshall, C. M., Snowling, M. J., & Bailey, P. J. (2001). Rapid auditory processing and phonological ability in normal readers and readers with dyslexia. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 44(4), 925-940.

Bailey, P. J. and Snowling, M. J. (2002) Auditory processing and the development of language and literacy. British Medical Bulletin, 63, 135–146.

Hill, N. I. and Bailey, P. J. (2002). A comparison of the effects of differences in temporal gating and ear of presentation on profile discrimination. Perception, 31(11), 1395-1402.

Lavidor, M., Hayes, A. & Bailey, P. J. (2003). Handedness, measures of hemispheric asymmetry and lateralized lexical decision. Laterality, 8(4), 347-360.

Griffiths, Y. M., Hill, N. I., Bailey, P. J., & Snowling, M. J. (2003). Auditory temporal order discrimination and backward recognition masking in dyslexic adults. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 46(5), 1352-1366.

Sach, A. J. and Bailey, P. J. (2004) Some characteristics of auditory spatial attention revealed using rhythmic masking release. Perception & Psychophysics, 66(8), 1379-1387.

Lavidor, M. and Bailey, P. J. (2005) Dissociations between serial position and number of letters effects in lateralized visual word recognition. Journal of Research in Reading, 28(3), 258-273.

Lipp, R., Kitterick, P., Summerfield, Q., Bailey, P. J. and Paul-Jordanov, I. (2010) Concurrent sound segregation based on inharmonicity and onset asynchrony. Neuropsychologia, 48(5), 1417-1425.

Mathias, S. R., Micheyl, C. and Bailey, P. J. (2010) Stimulus uncertainty and insensitivity to the direction of pitch change. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127(5), 3026-3037.

Peter Bailey Emeritus Reader

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