Abstract
When listeners process temporal properties of speech that convey information about the phonetic segments of the language, they do so in a rate-dependent manner. This is seen as a shift in the location of the phonetic category boundary along a temporal continuum toward longer values of the acoustic property in question, as speech is slowed. In a series of experiments, we found that the adjustment for rate is not confined to the region of the category boundary, but extends throughout the phonetic category. Specifically, a change in rate modified the range of stimuli identified as members of a phonetic category, as well as which stimuli were overtly judged to be good exemplars of the category. These findings suggest that the listener’s adjustment for speaking rate entails a comprehensive perceptual remapping between acoustic signal and phonetic structure.
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This research was supported by NIH Grant NS 14394 and HEW Biomedical Research Support Grant RR 07143. Some of the results were first reported at the 1986 Fall meeting of the Acoustxcal Society of America, and form the basis of a master’s thesis by the second author under the direction of the first author. The software for the speechprocessing facility used for stimulus preparation was developed at Northeastern University by Thomas Erb and Ashish Tungare and is based in part on the BLISS system developed by John Mertus at Brown University.
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Miller, J.L., Volaitis, L.E. Effect of speaking rate on the perceptual structure of a phonetic category. Perception & Psychophysics 46, 505–512 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208147
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208147