How do headphone checks impact perception data?

Abstract

Headphone checks have rapidly become an assumed part of best practices in online perception studies.  Do they actually improve our ability to find phonological patterns?  They are an indirect way of trying to ensure clear audio for all participants; it is not clear that controlling for this aspect of the participants' listening setup will necessarily decrease overall variation or produce better results.  This study attempts to replicate three perceptual effects that depend on different aspects of the acoustic signal, testing whether excluding participants based on two headphone checks (Huggins pitch perception, Milne et al 2021; dichotic loudness perception, Woods et al 2017) makes the results clearer.  The Huggins check improves results for how spectral tilt influences duration perception, but no other results were improved by either headphone check.