Nonsense-word tests remove top-down language repair, giving an unbiased intelligibility measure

Evidence

In logatom testing, nonsense words such as “shesh” and “bik” are placed into a carrier phrase such as “Can con buy < logatom, e.g., “shesh” here > also” to ensure that they are all pronounced with the same inflection. The listener then has to identify the nonsense word and write it down. Using nonsense words has the advantage of removing the higher language processing that we use to resolve words with degraded quality and so provides a less biased measure. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2401

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader claim that listeners unconsciously reconstruct degraded speech; logatoms deliberately block that reconstruction.
• SEED: Angle: why testing machines and ears requires stripping language away — the paradox that meaning is noise in an intelligibility measurement.