Do Japanese speakers perceive nonexistent vowels in non‐native consonant clusters

Abstract

Vowel epenthesis is a well known phenomenon that non‐native speakers insert epenthetic inside non‐native consonant clusters. Vowel epenthesis is assumed as perceptual illusory vowels (Dupoux et al. 1999). We analyzed vowel epenthesis shown by native Japanese speakers during reading and repetition tasks for non‐native consonant clusters, and analyzed their brain responses using magnetoencephalographic methods. Under the reading task, in which subjects read English words and nonsense words, native Japanese speakers (eight females) inserted vowel /o/ after /t/ and /d/ in consonant clusters, and vowel /u/ after other consonants. Under the repetition task, in which subjects repeated utterances of a native English speaker, native Japanese speakers did not produce epenthetic with few exceptions. The length of exceptional epenthetic found under the repetition task was shorter than those under the reading task. The magnetoencephalographic mismatch responses were elicited by epenthetic vowels...