title: General contrast effects in speech perception: effect of preceding liquid on stop consonant identification.
abstract: When members of a series of synthesized stop consonants varying acoustically in F3 characteristics and varying perceptually from /da/ to /ga/ are preceded by /al/, subjects report hearing more /ga/ syllables relative to when each member is preceded by /ar/ (Mann, 1980). It has been suggested that this result demonstrates the existence of a mechanism that compensates for coarticulation via tacit knowledge of articulatory dynamics and constraints, or through perceptual recovery of vocal-tract dynamics. The present study was designed to assess the degree to which these perceptual effects are specific to qualities of human articulatory sources. In three experiments, series of consonant-vowel (CV) stimuli varying in F3-onset frequency (/da/-/ga/) were preceded by speech versions or nonspeech analogues of /al/ and /ar/. The effect of liquid identity on stop consonant labeling remained when the preceding VC was produced by a female speaker and the CV syllable was modeled after a male speaker's productions. Labeling boundaries also shifted when the CV was preceded by a sine wave glide modeled after F3 characteristics of /al/ and /ar/. Identifications shifted even when the preceding sine wave was of constant frequency equal to the offset frequency of F3 from a natural production. These results suggest an explanation in terms of general auditory processes as opposed to recovery of or knowledge of specific articulatory dynamics.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. ajlotto@facstaff.wisc.edu
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Lotto
authors.forename: K R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Kluender
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors