Phonetic convergence is not a consequence of stimulus-response compatibility

Abstract

Moving to a different region within a country/language area tends to have the same consequences all over the globe. Phonetic patterns change over time, and they change in the direction of the pattern in the environment [Harrington et al. (2000), Sancier and Fowler (1997)]. This has often been attributed to a basic stimulus-response compatibility on a gestural level [Galantucci et al. (2009)]. The experimental evidence for a gestural stimulus-response compatibility, however, invariably confounds gestural with phonological compatibility, that is, gesturally incompatible distractor stimuli are also from a different phonological category [Mitterer and Ernestus (2008)]. In this presentation, I will present three lines of evidence that question a gestural stimulus-response compatibility driving phonetic convergence. A first experiment shows that phonetic convergence does not necessarily target concrete phonetic detail, but rather more global and abstract parameters. Second, I will show that there is no relation...