Exploring the ‘‘hyperspace’’ effect in vowel perception

Abstract

When using the method of adjustment to choose the best representative of an English vowel in an F1 by F2 space, listeners have been found to select formant values more extreme than those they actually produce [Johnson et al., Language 69, 505–528 (1993)]. This preference for ‘‘hyperspace’’ targets (those beyond actual productions) is argued to indicate a phonetic target more extreme than the subjects’ actual hyperarticulations. The same methodology was used with 10 Rhode Island subjects. They produced vowels under two conditions, citation and then (after the perceptual task) hyperarticulated speech. Perception was assessed with a grid of 298 F1/F2 combinations from which listeners chose the best match for a keyword’s vowel. Females and males were nearly equivalent in perception, as assumed previously but not shown. However, only one vowel was clearly extreme in both formants, with seven other vowels being more extreme on one formant, two vowels showing hypoarticulation, and the final one showing no effect. This lack of a robust effect may be due to difficulty of using F2 in perceiving the synthetic vowels. It may also be that the listeners were selecting perceptual targets from a more neutral dialetic than their own. [Work supported by NIH.]