The role of voice pitch in the perception of glottal stops

Abstract

Glottal stops that occur in VCV context are often not realized as stops at all, but rather show voicing that is continuous throughout the ‘‘occlusion’’ interval. Glottal stops that are realized in this way are apparently marked by reductions in intensity and fundamental frequency. In the present study recordings were made of speakers producing glottal stops in utterances such as ‘‘oh–oh’’ in which a glottal stop separates two identical vowels. The utterances were resynthesized in three ways: (1) with a flat F0 contour and an intensity contour matching the original utterance, (2) with a flat intensity contour and an F0 contour matching the original utterance, and (3) with intensity and F0 contours matching the original utterance. Results suggest that either cue alone is sufficient to signal the presence of the glottal stop. The impression of most listeners was that the signals cued by intensity alone were quite similar to those cued by F0 alone. The apparent equivalence of loudness and pitch in signaling the presence of a glottal stop would seem to present difficulties for a straightforward auditory account of phonetic recognition.