Factors influencing the spectral representation of front‐back vowels in American English

Abstract

It has been proposed that front vowels in American English have an auditory distance of less than 3 critical bands between the second and third formants, whereas, in back vowels, this distance is greater than 3 Barks [A. K. Syrdal and H. S. Gopal, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 79, 1086–1100 (1986)]. The current study investigates the success of classifying front and back American English vowels into two separate classes using this auditory model given the variations in the acoustic signal due to speaking rate, post‐vocalic consonantal voicing, and different speakers. Several researchers have shown that these factors influence vowel formant frequencies. Measurements were made of vowel F1, F2 and durations in /pVC/ target syllables containing one of four pairs of frontback vowels and voiced or voiceless stops or fricatives. Target syllables were produced in sentence context at three different speaking rates by two male and two female native American English speakers. Results will be reported and discussed for an inva...