Integrality in consonant perception: Vowel environment influences consonant perception

Abstract

Previous research designed to examine the nature of phonetic processing through the use of noise‐tone analogs to speech syllables has demonstrated that the phonetic coding of noise and tone segments as consonant and vowel within a syllable proceeds in a mutually dependent (integral) fashion. However, the auditory coding of these segments is independent (separable). The purpose of the present experiment was to determine whether consonant information is also processed in an integral fashion with respect to vowel information contained in an adjacent syllable. Tone‐noise‐tone analogs of V_CV disyllables were used in a speeded classification task. The results indicate that the phonetic coding of the noise as a fricative is integral with respect to both the preceding and following vowel. Thus the perceptual coding of consonants seems to proceed with reference to a surrounding vowel environment regardless of syllable boundaries. The implications of these results for the phonetic coding of speech, and recent proposals regarding the priority of vowel information in perception, will be discussed. [Work supported by NINCDS.]