This commentary questions the proposed resemblance between
the auditory mechanisms of localization and those of the sensory
registration of speech sounds. Comparative evidence, which would show
that the neurophysiology of localization is adequate to the task of
categorizing consonants, does not exist. In addition, Sussman et al.
do not offer sensory or perceptual evidence to confirm the presence
in humans of processes promoting phoneme categorization that are
analogous to the neurophysiology of localization. Furthermore, the
computational simulation of the linear model of second formant
variation is not a plausible sensory mechanism for perceiving speech
sounds.