The role of transition duration in the perception of speech and nonspeech analogs of place of articulation

Abstract

A previous report [R. Zakia, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 87, S117 (1990)] demonstrated that at a formant frequency pattern ambiguous between alveolar and velar, subjects identify synthetic speech stimuli with longer transition durations as velars and stimuli with shorter transition durations as alveolars. These results suggest the operation of either (1) an articulatory property characteristic of velars (longer transition durations distinguish velars because of their slower articulatory release), or (2) differential perceptual sensitivity to transition duration for spectral patterns characteristic of velars. To evaluate these possibilities, nonspeech analogs of a formant pattern ambiguous between an alveolar and a velar were generated with transition durations ranging between 20 and 50 ms in 5‐ms steps. In contrast to the previous identification task, the nonspeech stimuli were presented in a same‐different discrimination task. For comparison purposes, this same‐different task was also conducted with the...