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Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
A role for the second subglottal resonance in lexical access
Steven M Lulich1, Asaf Bachrach, Nicolas Malyska
1Speech Communication Group, MIT, and Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. slulich@hsph.harvard.edu
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|October 2, 2007
Summary
Acoustic discontinuities in speech, specifically the second formant (F2) passing through subglottal resonances, influence vowel perception. This finding supports how speech sounds are processed for language.
Area of Science:
- Acoustic phonetics
- Speech perception
- Linguistics
Background:
- Acoustic coupling between the vocal tract and subglottal airway introduces resonances.
- A discontinuity in amplitude occurs when the second formant (F2) aligns with the second subglottal resonance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if F2 discontinuities affect the perception of the distinctive feature [back].
- To determine the influence of F2 discontinuity frequency on vowel backness perception.
Main Methods:
- Synthesized utterances ('apter', 'up there') with and without F2 discontinuities.
- Presented synthesized speech to subjects for real word identification tasks.
Main Results:
- The frequency of the F2 discontinuity significantly impacts the perceived backness of vowels.
- Listeners' perception of vowel backness is modulated by the presence and location of acoustic discontinuities.
Conclusions:
- Acoustic-articulatory discontinuities play a role in phonological feature identification.
- These discontinuities may shape vowel inventories across languages and support models of lexical access.
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