Prominence perception: Conflicting cues and linguistically encoded bias.

Abstract

Beyond the commonly known fact that prominent syllables are greater in amplitude, higher in F0, and longer in duration, this study examines cross linguistic patterns in the perception of prominence. Particularly, identification of stress placement is tested in a situation where F0 and duration happen to be in conflict (e.g., H+L* bitonal pitch accent). Three languages are selected considering their prosodic characteristics such as phonological role of prominence and rhythm (stress‐timed/syllable‐timed): English, Spanish, and Korean. A new‐language‐learning setting is devised to collect production data based on which the patterns of phonetic realization of stress are directly compared among the language groups. CVCVCV pseudowords, where C=m, n, k, s and V=a, (e, i), are used for both production and perception experiments. F0 and duration are manipulated in order to create conflicting cues that are suitable for the purpose of the perception experiment. Stressed syllables are consistently realized with higher F0 together with longer duration across the groups, though to different extents. The perceptual sensitivity to the durational manipulation is found to vary among the groups. Linguistic implications are discussed referring to the phonological role(s) of F0 and duration in each language as well as to the relationship between production and perception.