Children’s perception of static noise and static formant cues to stop‐consonant place of articulation

Abstract

Children’s processing strategies appear to favor dynamic cues such as formant transitions as compared to static cues such as F2 onsets and noise bursts. The purpose of this research was to examine children’s perception of place of articulation based only on static cues. Ten children at each of five age levels (3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) and a control group of 10 adults identified synthesized stop consonants [d g] in two vowel contexts [i ɑ]. The synthesis parameters included variations in F2 onsets and stop‐consonant noise bursts. The F2 onsets were either ‘‘appropriate’’ or ‘‘neutral’’ for place of articulation. The noise bursts were either short (10 ms) or long (25 ms). Preliminary data show that the F2 onset is not as salient in children’s perception as in adults’ perception. In addition, children more often than adults categorized neutral F2 onset stimuli as ambiguous indicating stronger category formation in the latter than former groups. The role of noise bursts was more salient in adult perception than chi...