Effect of Third-Formant Transitions on the Perception of the Voiced Stop Consonants

Abstract

The pattern playback was used to generate synthetic syllables consisting of a wide range of second- and third-formant transitions in initial position with the vowels i and ae. It was found that third-formant transitions affected the perception of the stop consonants. (The effects of the second-formant transitions were as previously reported.) When the third formants and their associated transitions were added at the frequency levels appropriate to each of the two vowels, positive transitions strengthened the perception of d at the expense of b or g, while negative transitions had the opposite effect. There was some evidence that variations of the steady-state level of the third formant changed the effect of a given third-formant transition. The results suggest that the effect of third-formant transitions is largely independent of the second-formant transitions with which they are combined. (This work was supported in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and in part by the Department of Defense in connection with Contract DA49-170-sc-1642.)