Bottoms up! How top-down pitfalls ensnare speech perception researchers, too

Not only can the pitfalls that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) identify be generalised across multiple studies within the field of visual perception, but also they have general application outside the field wherever perceptual and cognitive processing are compared. We call attention to the widespread susceptibility of research on the perception of speech to versions of the same pitfalls. Firestone & Scholl (F&S) review an extensive body of research on visual perception. Claims of higher-level effects on lower-level processes, they show, have swept over this research field like a “tidal wave.” Unsurprisingly, other areas of cognitive psychology have been similarly inundated.