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Workshop on the Auditory Basis of Speech PerceptionKeele University, UK |
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Workshop on the Auditory Basis of Speech PerceptionKeele University, UK |
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Numerous attempts have been made in recent years to explain phonetic systems in auditory terms, as reflecting constraints imposed by the auditory system. Thus it has been suggested by Bladon [1] that the reason preaspiration is a rare phonetic contrast can be explained by it being auditorily disadvantaged. It has previously been shown by Pind [2] that preaspiration, cued by Voice Offset Time, shows much greater sensitivity to vowel lengthening than does postaspiration (Voice Onset Time). While this could be explained in auditory terms, e.g. in terms of asymmetric masking, a different explanation holds that this follows from the linguistic structure of the syllable containing preaspiration. Experiments, using sine-wave analogs of aspiration and preaspiration, and synthetic speech, do not lend support to the auditory theory of preaspiration perception but do point to the importance of language-specific factors in explicating the time course of Voice Offset Time perception.
Bibliographic reference. Pind, Jörgen (1996): "A case of "auditory handicap' in speech perception?", In ABSP-1996, 162-165.