Partial perceptual compensation for nasal coarticulation is robust to fundamental frequency variation

Abstract

Listeners show better-than-chance discrimination of nasalized and oral vowels occurring in appropriate consonantal contexts. Yet, the methods for investigating partial perceptual compensation for nasal coarticulation often include nasal and oral vowels containing naturally different pitch contours. Listeners may therefore be discriminating between these vowels based on pitch differences and not nasalization. The current study investigates the effect of pitch variation on the discrimination of nasalized and oral vowels in C_N and C_C items. The f0 contour of vowels within paired discrimination trials was varied. The results indicate that pitch variation does not influence patterns of partial perceptual compensation for coarticulation.