The Influence of Dynamic F0 on the Perception of Vowel Duration: Cross-linguistic Evidence

This paper investigates the influence of a dynamic fundamental frequency (F0) on the perception of vowel duration. The perception of vowel duration of the vowels [a], [e], and [i] with a falling versus a level F0 was investigated. Native speakers of Thai, Japanese, German, and Latin American Spanish were presented with monosyllabic CV non-sense words, and their perception of the duration of vowels with a level F0 was compared to that of vowels with a falling F0 from 160 Hz to 80Hz. The results show that only Japanese listeners perceived the vowels with a falling F0 as longer. Hence the cross-linguistic investigation shows that the influence of F0 on the perceived duration of vowels is language specific rather than universally present in speech perception.