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. 2011 Oct;130(4):EL226-31.
doi: 10.1121/1.3630221.

Cross-language perceptual similarity predicts categorial discrimination of American vowels by naïve Japanese listeners

Winifred Strange  1 , Miwako Hisagi, Reiko Akahane-Yamada, Rieko Kubo
Affiliations

Cross-language perceptual similarity predicts categorial discrimination of American vowels by naïve Japanese listeners

Winifred Strange et al. J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Oct.

Abstract

Current speech perception models propose that relative perceptual difficulties with non-native segmental contrasts can be predicted from cross-language phonetic similarities. Japanese (J) listeners performed a categorical discrimination task in which nine contrasts (six adjacent height pairs, three front/back pairs) involving eight American (AE) vowels [iː, ɪ, ε, æː, ɑː, ʌ, ʊ, uː] in /hVbə/ disyllables were tested. The listeners also completed a perceptual assimilation task (categorization as J vowels with category goodness ratings). Perceptual assimilation patterns (quantified as categorization overlap scores) were highly predictive of discrimination accuracy (r(s)=0.93). Results suggested that J listeners used both spectral and temporal information in discriminating vowel contrasts.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Acoustic parameters of 24 stimuli (3 tokens of each vowel): (A) mid-syllable first (F1) and second (F2) formant values (in Bark); (B) mean formant trajectories (25–50–75%) in F1∕F2 Bark space; (C) mean durations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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