A synergetic model for the verbal transformation effect

Abstract.

We describe a nonlinear dynamical model based on synergetics for the auditory perceptual illusion known as the verbal transformation effect. The model is an extension of a synergetic model of perceptual oscillations of visual ambiguous figures. The main extension is connected to the number of reported alternative phonemic structures, which is typically much greater than the two or three alternatives usually reported in experiments with visual ambiguous figures. The properties of the model, which are derived using basic psychophysical principles, are presented and evaluated on the basis of the fit to earlier empirical work. It will be shown that there is very good agreement between the empirically observed properties of the verbal transformation effect and the properties detected by the model.