Perception of Coarticulation in English VCV Sequences

Abstract

Öhman's 1966 investigation of the acoustic correlates of coarticulation in Swedish and English VCV sequences [J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 39, 151–168 (1966)] indicates that terminal formant transition frequency values are strongly influenced by the nature of the transconsonantal vowel. However, the literature reflects no attempts to discover whether these coarticulation effects are perceptible, e.g., whether in a VCV sequence the initial VC carries significant perceptual cues as to the quality of the following V. The present experiment was designed to investigate the latter question. Forty-eight VCV utterances involving the vowels /i æ a u/ and the consonants /p t k/ were recorded and either the initial or final vowel removed by splicing techniques. The resulting tapes were played to listeners who were asked to indicate which vowel had been deleted. Results were random indicating that coarticulation effects are not sufficient cues to the perception of the vowels which occasion them. These results are counterevidence for the claim by Wickelgren [Psychol. Rev. 76, No. 1, 1–15 (1969)] that the “context sensitive” allophone may be a basic cue in speech recognition. The results also suggest that some coarticulation effects may not have to be taken into consideration in speech synthesis.