Influence of fundamental frequency on stop-consonant voicing perception: A case of learned covariation or auditory enhancement?

Abstract

For stimuli modeling stop consonants varying in the acoustic correlates of voice onset time ͑VOT͒, human listeners are more likely to perceive stimuli with lower f 0's as voiced consonants-a pattern of perception that follows regularities in English speech production. The present study examines the basis of this observation. One hypothesis is that lower f 0's enhance perception of voiced stops by virtue of perceptual interactions that arise from the operating characteristics of the auditory system. A second hypothesis is that this perceptual pattern develops as a result of experience with f 0-voicing covariation. In a test of these hypotheses, Japanese quail learned to respond to stimuli drawn from a series varying in VOT through training with one of three patterns of f 0-voicing covariation. Voicing and f 0 varied in the natural pattern ͑shorter VOT, lower f 0͒, in an inverse pattern ͑shorter VOT, higher f 0͒, or in a random pattern ͑no f 0-voicing covariation͒. Birds trained with stimuli that had no f 0-voicing covariation exhibited no effect of f 0 on response to novel stimuli varying in VOT. For the other groups, birds' responses followed the experienced pattern of covariation. These results suggest f 0 does not exert an obligatory influence on categorization of consonants as ͓VOICE͔ and emphasize the learnability of covariation among acoustic characteristics of speech.

Feature parsing: Feature cue mapping in spoken word recognition

“…As I have already suggested, auditory grouping mechanisms could provide a perceptual account of the processing of assimilated speech within the featureparsing framework. Lotto and Kluender have provided an alternate perceptual account of the coarticulatory context effects that is couched in terms of auditory contrast phenomena (Holt, Lotto, & Kluender, 2001; Lotto & Kluen- Note-The underlined phoneme is the target in each example.…”

On the causes of compensation for coarticulation: Evidence for phonological mediation

“…It may, nevertheless, be possible to make a more specific statement about the causes of compensation. Two other context effects for which learning seems crucial are the cases of the perception of stop voicing influenced by the f 0 in the vowel (Holt et al, 2001) and the trading relation of silence and F1 onset in the perception of [ ] versus [ ] onsets (Sinnott & Saporita, 2000). Effects seem to be based on audition for liquid-voiced-stop sequences, fricative-unvoiced-stop sequences, and even liquid assimilation in Hungarian.…”

“…Learning accounts are not fundamentally at odds with auditory (Diehl, Lotto, & Holt, 2004;Holt, Lotto, & Kluender, 2001) or gestural (see, e.g., Best, 1995;Gibson, 1979, p. 141) theories. However, for any given pattern of coarticulation, the absence of an effect of learning has been taken as evidence for either an auditory account (Lotto, Kluender, & Holt, 1997) or a gestural account (Fowler & Dekle, 1991;Mann, 1986).…”

Putting phonetic context effects into context: A commentary on Fowler (2006)

“…We believe that this result is predictable from a general learning account whereby categories are formed from correlations among stimulus parameters. Moreover, we have demonstrated that even birds can learn such correlations from speech sounds (Holt, Lotto, & Kluender, 2001). …”