Effects of syllable duration on stop-glide identification in syllable-initial and syllable-final position by humans and monkeys.
Humans and monkeys were compared in their identification of phoneme boundaries along synthetic stop-glide continua in syllable-initial /bo/-/wa/ or syllable-final /bab/-/baw/ contrasts differing in overall syllable duration. For both contrasts, humans were first tested with a conventional written identification procedure. Here, similar phoneme boundaries emerged and shifted with increases in syllable duration toward longer transitions, as has previously been reported in the literature for syllable-initial data (Miller & Liberman, 1979). Humans and monkeys were then tested on these contrasts, using a go/no-go identification procedure specifically designed for monkeys. Here also, stop-glide boundaries emerged and shifted with increased syllable duration for both species, although monkey "boundaries" were at longer durations than humans' in syllable-final position. The results indicate that there are both gross similarities and subtle differences between humans and monkeys with regard to the stop-glide context effect. The results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that general mammalian auditory mechanisms are responsible for this effect.
Department of Psychology, University of South Alabama, Mobile 36688, USA. jsinnott@jaguarl.usouthal.edu
J M
JM
Sinnott
C H
CH
Brown
M A
MA
Borneman
D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D000882:Haplorhini / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010700:Phonetics; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors