Day 56 of 150 Language Difficulty 6/10
Phonemic restoration: the brain fills in missing speech
Quick answer
Phonemic restoration: the brain fills in missing speech. Today's question (Phonemic restoration) asks about a finding from Warren, R. M. in 1970. The correct option is Fail to identify which phoneme was missing — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
When a cough replaces the *s* in "legi*s*latures" within a recorded sentence, listeners typically:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: B — Fail to identify which phoneme was missing
Warren (1970) replaced a single phoneme in a recorded sentence with a cough or tone of equal duration. Listeners reliably failed to localise which phoneme was missing — perception filled in a perfectly intelligible word. The illusion is robust even when listeners are told a phoneme has been replaced and asked to find it. Phonemic restoration is direct evidence that speech perception integrates top-down lexical and contextual knowledge with bottom-up acoustics, an early and influential demonstration of perception as inference rather than transcription.
About the source
Warren, R. M. (1970). Perceptual restoration of missing speech sounds. Science, 167(3917), 392–393.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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