Phonological categorization of vowels: a mismatch negativity study.
There is electrophysiological evidence that phonological categorization has occurred within 100-200 ms post stimulus onset for the syllables /tae/ and /dae/, which vary in voice onset time. Using a similar paradigm, this study investigated when phonological categorization occurred for the contrast between /I/ and /epsilon/, using synthesized speech tokens that differed in the frequency of the first formant. Here we show that phonological categorization of these tokens has not occurred 100-200 ms after stimulus onset. However, the presence of a late mismatch negativity (350 ms after stimulus onset) indicated that phonological categorization had taken place by this time.
Hill
Penelope R
PR
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK. PennyHill@OxfordHearing.com
McArthur
Genevieve M
GM
Bishop
Dorothy V M
DV
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013061:Speech Acoustics