Subject: Re: Stop consonant identification based on initial spectra? From: Alex Francis <francisa(at)PURDUE.EDU> Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:45:19 -0500Peter, It does appear that the place-of-articulation related patterns of stop consonant burst spectra are relatively invariant: Stevens, K. N., & Blumstein, S. E. (1981). The search for invariant acoustic correlates of phonetic features. In Eimas, P. D., & Miller, J. L. (Eds.) Perspectives on the Study of Speech (pp. 1-38). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Furthermore, burst spectra are apparently usable as acoustic cues to place of articulation, but they do not appear to be as useful as formant transitions, and given a choice listeners tend to prefer formant transitions: Walley, A. C., & Carrell, T. D. (1983). Onset spectra and formant transitions in the adult's and child's perception of place of articulation in stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 73, 1011-1022. It's even difficult (though probably not impossible) to train listeners to use burst properties instead of formant transitions. It seems to be comparatively easier to train listeners to use formant transitions instead of bursts. Francis, A. L., Baldwin, K., & Nusbaum, H. C. (2000). Effects of training on attention to acoustic cues. Perception and Psychophysics,62(8), 1668-1680. Where did you see the poster? Do you remember the authors' names? -alex At 11:06 AM 3/2/2005, Marvit, Peter wrote: >I'm sorry to interrupt the current frenzy of pet anecdotes (in which no one >has yet mentioned fish)... > >I'm looking for a reference that reports whether or not humans can identify >stop consonants based on their initial spectra--before the formant >transitions to the following vowel. Secondarily (though I suppose more >fundamentally), are the initial spectra (first 10 msec or however long >*before* formant transitions) invariant with respect to following vowels? >Differences between voiced and unvoiced? > >Background: I had been well indoctrinated in the motor theory of speech >perception, teaching my students the wonders of categorical perception of >stop consonants despite widely varying formant transition profiles across >different vowels (i.e., /di/ looks rather different than /du/ but we >identify /d/ in both). A recent conference poster looking at >neurophysiological spectral representation in non-human primate suggested >that response to spectra of stop consonants (without the following formant >transitions) was sufficient to distinguish and identify them. Alas, I did >not get the relevant human reference and have been unable to find one in an >informal search of my reference books and MEDLINE. > >Thanks in advance, >Peter > >: Peter Marvit, PhD <pmarvit(at)som.umaryland.edu> : >: Dept. Anatomy and Neurobiology University of Maryland Medical School: >: 20 Penn Street, HSF II, Room S251 Baltimore, MD 21201 : >: phone 410-706-1272 http://www.theearlab.org fax 410-706-2512 : Alexander L. Francis http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~francisa Assistant Professor francisA(at)purdue.edu Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences ofc. +1 (765) 494-3815 Purdue University lab. +1 (765) 494-7553 500 Oval Drive fax. +1 (765) 494-0771 West Lafayette IN 47907-2038 USA ------------my employer requires the following addendum------------ CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email and the documents accompanying this email may contain legally privileged confidential information. The information is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named as recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction or distribution of this email or its attachments, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this email or its attachments, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by return email.