Phonological processes and the perception of phonotactically illegal consonant clusters

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Phonology
• Speech Perception

Background:

• English phonotactics govern permissible consonant sequences.
• Listeners may perceive illegal clusters based on phonological rules or frequency.
• The phonotactic context effect influences perception of illegal sequences.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate how phonological knowledge impacts speech processing.
• Determine if phonotactic rules or frequency cause the phonotactic context effect.
• Assess the role of syllabification and vowel epenthesis in illegal cluster perception.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: Tested initial illegal consonant clusters and the phonotactic context effect.
• Experiment 2: Replicated Experiment 1 with medial clusters to examine syllabification.
• Experiment 3: Investigated vowel epenthesis's influence on illegal sequence perception.

Main Results:

• Phonotactic knowledge influences the perception of illegal consonant clusters.
• The phonotactic context effect is modulated by phonological rules, not just frequency.
• Syllabification and vowel epenthesis can alter the perception of illegal sequences.

Conclusions:

• Listeners' phonological knowledge actively shapes speech perception.
• Phonotactic rules play a significant role in processing potentially illegal sound combinations.
• Multiple phonological processes can lead to the perception of illegal sequences as legal.