A note on hidden factors in vowel perception experiments

Abstract

The article ‘‘Static, dynamic, and relational properties in vowel perception,’’ by Terrance M. Nearey [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 2088–2113 (1989)], contains a report on a vowel perception experiment that reproduces the previous finding that the perceptual identification of vowels is influenced by both extrinsic, contextual factors and by intrinsic factors such as F0. The effect of F0 is, however, interpreted to be smaller than claimed in previous research. This appears to be due to an incorrect analysis of the role of context. It is shown how the results are to be interpreted taking into account how the listener’s expectations are affected by a preceding context. The results are compatible with predictions on the basis of a relational theory of speech perception for cases in which intrinsic and extrinsic factors do not counteract each other.