Asymmetries in English vowel perception mirror compression effects

Area of Science:

• Phonetics
• Auditory Perception
• Speech Production

Background:

• Listeners perceive vowels based on surrounding consonants.
• Consonants contain acoustic cues to adjacent vowels.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate English listeners' ability to identify vowel context from isolated consonants.
• Examine positional asymmetries in vowel sensitivity for different consonant types.
• Relate findings to speech production mechanisms like vowel compression.

Main Methods:

• Vowel-identification experiments using gated consonant stimuli.
• Analysis of consonant information for vowel recovery.
• Comparison of sensitivity across consonant types (stops, nasals, liquids) and positions (onset, coda).

Main Results:

• Listeners can recover vocalic context from consonants alone for most types.
• Positional asymmetries observed: liquids show higher coda sensitivity, stops show higher onset sensitivity.
• Nasals exhibit mixed patterns depending on acoustic features considered.

Conclusions:

• Consonants alone provide significant information about their vocalic context.
• Positional asymmetries in vowel sensitivity are linked to vowel compression in speech production.
• Findings contribute to understanding speech perception and production mechanisms.