Voice Onset Time and the Perception of Japanese Voicing Contrasts

Abstract

Much crosslinguistic research exists on the production and perception of voice onset time (VOT). However, most research on the perception of VOT uses synthetic stimuli instead of natural speech stimuli. Effects of synthetic speech on the perception of VOT are not known, but more research needs to be done to see if there are differences between perception using synthetic speech and perception using natural speech. This pilot study uses natural speech to investigate perception of Japanese VOT by Japanese listeners. Results clearly show that not just VOT, but other phonetic factors too must be responsible for differences in perception of the voicedvoiceless distinction in Japanese word-initial stop consonants.