On the distinctive pitch of vowels: Perceptual prototypes for sinewave analogs?

Abstract

A recent study by Kuhl etal. (1991) found striking perceptual correspondences between vowels and steady tones. Whether subjects experienced spoken vowels, visually presented images of articulating faces producing vowels, or imaginary vowels, they matched the vowel /ɑ / with a low-pitch tone, and /i/ with a high-pitch tone. However, tonal analogs of vowels were matched in the opposite manner, with low pitch associated with the vowel /i/ and high with the vowel /ɑ /. These sine-wave vowels were therefore excluded from hypothesized recognition mechanisms employing distinctive vowel pitches as perceptual prototypes. This finding is counterevidence to claims that tonal analogs of utterances are perceived through ordinary means. The present study employed sinewave realizations of several words differing solely in the nuclear vowel, /ɑ / or /i/, in an attempt to replicate and extend this finding. Subjects were asked to match the predominant pitch or vowel quality of these medial sine-wave vowels to the pitch of a single tone. The results will be discussed with respect to claims about the ordinariness of the perception of sinewave replicas and hypothetically prototypic distinctive vowel pitches. [Research supported by NIDCD and NICHD.]