Aspects of a model of the auditory representation of american english vowels

Abstract

This paper describes some of the implications of Ludmilla Chistovich's “spectral center of gravity” (SCG) effect for a model of the auditory representation of American English vowels. Chistovich's work on defining a critical distance for the SCG effect is closely related to two of the most fundamental problems in speech communication research: the relation between acoustic attributes and phonemic features and the problem of invariance despite large acoustic differences between speakers. Firstly, experimental findings relating to the SCG effect are reviewed. Secondly, a model incorporating these perceptual effects is described, and thirdly, three aspects of the model are discussed: (1) the resulting feature analysis, (2) normalization, and (3) acoustic variability as represented in the model and its relation to Steven's quantal theory of speech production.