Articulatory parameters for the perception of bilabials

In order to investigate articulatory cues for the perception of bilabial consonants, a production model was set up whose control parameters were converted into acoustic parameters by which a terminal analogue speech synthesizer was driven to synthesize test sounds for the perception experiments. Experiments concerning discrimination between (b) and (w) and between (m) and (w) were then performed with these test sounds. Statistical testing of the results showed that discrimination among the bilabials in an intervocalic context entirely depended on the minimum value of lip opening and that, contrary to the facts hitherto known, it was independent of the rate of lip opening/closure. At the same time, the features [+ anterior, - coronal] and [+ nasal] turned out to be perceptually independent phonological attributes of bilabial and nasal consonants, respectively.