Perception of the [m]–[n] distinction in CV syllables

Abstract

The contribution of the nasal murmur and the vocalic formant transitions to perception of the [m]-[n] distinction in utterance-initial position preceding [i,a,u] was investigated, extending the recent work of Kurowski and Blumstein [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 76, 383-390 (1984)]. A variety of waveform-editing procedures were applied to syllables produced by six different talkers. Listeners' judgments of the edited stimuli confirmed that the nasal murmur makes a significant contribution to place of articulation perception. Murmur and transition information appeared to be integrated at a genuinely perceptual, not an abstract cognitive, level. This was particularly evident in [-i] context, where only the simultaneous presence of murmur and transition components permitted accurate place of articulation identification. The perceptual information seemed to be purely relational in this case. It also seemed to be context specific, since the spectral change from the murmur to the vowel onset did not follow an invariant pattern across front and back vowels.

Perceptual Processing of Mandarin Nasals by L1 and L2 Mandarin Speakers

“…This direction followed the markedness statements (Maddieson 1984), in which the coronal position for the alveolar nasal was unmarked and thus psychologically perceived with higher frequency. These findings in the perception experiment of Mandarin nasals were in agreement with the perception saliency hierarchy in Tse (1992) Kurowski and Blumstein (1984) and Repp (1986). Failure in making appropriate reference to acoustic cues in both the vowel region and the nasal region might eventually lead to the greatest confusion in the [in]- [iN] contrast.…”

Nasal place assimilation and the perceptibility of place contrasts

“…Beddor & Evans-Romaine (1995) suggest that "[a]n acoustic-perceptual account of nasal place assimilation might argue that place distinctions are perceptually less salient for nasal consonants than for oral stops" (p.147) and conclude that "place of articulation in syllable-final nasals is not perceptually robust" (p. 164). See also Martin & Peperkamp (2011) for general discussion of this view; for studies on general acoustic and perceptual characteristics of nasal place contrasts, see Beddor & Evans-Romaine (1995), Fujimura (1962), Kurowski & Blumstein (1984), Kurowski & Blumstein (1993), Malécot (1956), Narayan (2008), Repp (1986), and references cited therein.…”

Production and identification of English word-final nasal consonants by Brazilian EFL learners

“…As reported by Kurowski and Blumstein, there are other studies on nasals that have also found this vowel context effect for the bilabials in the environment of the high front vowel (Kurowski & Blumstein, 1984;Repp, 1986, all cited in Kurowski & Blumstein, 1995, p. 199). The authors point out that the same perceptual effects involving labials in the environment of [i] and [i,e] have been found with other consonant classes such as the oral stop consonants, for instance (Blumstein & Stevens, 1980;Kewley-Port, 1983, all cited in Kurowski & Blumstein, 1995, p. 199).…”

“…Production of nasal consonants 2. Production of nasal consonants Regarding the production of the nasal consonants and their acoustic characteristics, some relevant variables which have been considered by researchers are stress (Fujimura, 1962;Krakow, 1995), syllable position (Kurowski & Blumstein, 1987;Repp, 1986;Repp & Svastikula, 1988), and vowel context (Kurowski & Blumstein, 1984, 1987Krakow, 1995). For the purpose of the present study, this section summarizes studies focused on syllable position, particularly syllable-final position, and vowel context with native speakers of English and Brazilian learners of English.…”