An acoustic analysis of speech reveals inconsistent formant transition durations; what process primarily allows listeners to accurately perceive phonemes despite this variability?

💡 Explanation

Listeners normalize acoustic input because formant transitions vary due to speaker differences and speaking rate. Therefore, perceptual normalization allows listeners to accurately interpret phonemes despite variability, rather than relying on precise auditory nerve firings or detailed spectrographic matching, which would be vulnerable to this variance.

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