It is often argued that in processing of sensory signals such as speech, engineering should apply knowledge of properties of human perception - both have the same goal of getting information from the signal. We show on examples from speech technology that perceptual research can also learn from advances in technology. After all, speech evolved to be heard and properties of hearing are imprinted on speech. Subsequently, engineering optimizations of speech technology often yield human-like processing strategies. Further, fundamental difficulties that speech engineering still faces could indicate gaps in our current understanding
 of the human speech communication process, suggesting directions of further inquiries.