Abstract:
It has previously been shown that many speakers will exhibit sensorimotor adaptation in whispered vowel production; i.e., they will alter their articulation of a whispered vowel in response to alteration of perceived formant frequencies in their normal acoustic feedback [ J. F. Houde and M. I. Jordan, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97, 3243(A) (1995)]. This previous study showed the alteration of the vowel's articulation always being in a direction which minimized the perceived shift of the vowel's normal formant frequencies. This previous study also included a pilot investigation of context generalization, which showed this learned adaptation of a vowel in one CVC context affected articulation of the same vowel in other CVC contexts. The current study is a more complete investigation of context generalization, as well as another type of generalization called vowel target generalization, showing the learned adaptation of a vowel in one CVC context affects articulation of different vowels in the same CVC context. The study also found (via post-experiment interview) that no subject was aware of the acoustic feedback having been altered, nor did any report noticing change in their vowel articulations, indicating the automatic, unconscious nature of the adaptation effect.