Intelligibility of chimeric locally time-reversed speech: Relative contribution of four frequency bands.

Intelligibility of four-band speech stimuli was investigated (n = 18), such that only one of the frequency bands was preserved, whereas other bands were locally time-reversed (segment duration: 75-300 ms), or vice versa. Intelligibility was best retained (82% at 75 ms) when the second lowest band (540-1700 Hz) was preserved. When the same band was degraded, the largest drop (10% at 300 ms) occurred. The lowest and second highest bands contributed similarly less strongly to intelligibility. The highest frequency band contributed least. A close connection between the second lowest frequency band and sonority was suggested.