Although contemporary theorists view listening as a multidimensional process, the preponderance of published empirical research on human comprehension of speeded speech is based on an outdated, unitary construct. In the present study, the impact of varying levels of time compression on three different types of listening is investigated. The results indicate that comprehensive listening performance deteriorates significantly as speech compression levels are increased while interpretive and short‐term listening performance remains stable until a high degree of time compression (60%) is reached. Explanations for these findings are advanced based upon established differences between short and long‐term memory proces