Abstract
Previous research [T. L. Gottfried, J. L. Miller, and P. E. Payton, Phonetica 47, 155–172 (1990)] has indicated for synthetic speech that vowel identification changes according to the speaking rate of the sentence context, even when the vowel contrast is specified experimentally only by spectral differences. This study tests listeners’ identification of /i/ vs /I / in stimulus continua created by altering formant values and durations of the target syllables ‘‘beat’’ and ‘‘bit’’ in naturally produced sentences. These targets were spoken in two sentence frames, one spoken at a moderate rate of speech and the other compressed to twice the speaking rate. Longer syllable durations significantly shifted the boundary of the spectral continuum, so that there were more ‘‘beat’’ responses as compared to shorter durations. However, unlike what was found for synthetic vowel series, there was no significant effect of sentence rate on the number of ‘‘beat’’ responses. Reasons for this different outcome, and the relevance of these findings for theories of rate normalization, are discussed. [Work supported by Lawrence University Faculty Grant.]
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