The question of vowel intelligibility as a function of F0 is still a matter of debate. Above all concerning vowel sounds produced at F0s exceeding vowelrelated statistical F1 in citation-form words (‘oversinging’ F1), it is unclear whether vowel category perception inevitably shifts towards the neighboring category with a higher F1 or can be maintained in such cases. In this study, we tested li...

This paper presents two unsupervised approaches to Automatic Language Identification (ALI) based on a segmental preprocessing. In the Global Segmental Model approach, the language system is modeled by a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) trained with automatically detected segments. In the Phonetic Differentiated Model approach, an unsupervised detection vowel/non vowel is performed and the language ...

The accuracy with which native Japanese listeners identified American English vowels and coda nasals was assessed before and after training. The listeners were divided into four groups, each of which received a different type of training. Two of the four groups were vowel-oriented; one of these groups received vowel identification training (VI), while the other received vowel discrimination tra...

Native Spanish speakers and Canadian English learners of Spanish produced the five Spanish vowels in utterance final /sV/ syllables. The syllables were presented in random order to Spanish and English listeners for identification of vowels in terms of Spanish vowel categories. The English listeners also identified the vowels in terms of English vowel categories. Initial analysis of perceptual r...

This study aimed at comparing the perception and production of English front vowels by 17 proficient Brazilian speakers of English as a second language (L2) and 6 native speakers of American English. Towards this end, three experiments were carried out: (i) a production test measuring the first two formants of the participants’ English front vowels, (ii) an oddity discrimination test investigat...

PURPOSE To clarify if large numbers of wide dynamic range compression channels provide advantages for vowel identification and to measure its acoustic effects. Methods Eight vowels produced by 12 talkers in the /hVd/ context were compressed using 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 channels. Formant contrast indices (mean formant peak minus mean formant trough; maximum formant peak minus minimum formant trough)...

In the production of Swedish, vowel quantity is known to be realized in the vowel, but also affects duration of a postvocalic consonant. The goal of this study is to examine the use of postvocalic consonant duration as a perceptual cue to vowel quantity. Listeners ́ responses and reaction times were recorded for synthesized materials in which the vowel spectra and duration were kept constant and...

Temporal processing declines with age may reduce the processing of concurrent vowels. For this study, listeners categorized vowel pairs varying in temporal asynchrony as one sound, two overlapping sounds, or two sounds separated by a gap. Two boundaries separating the three response categories, multiplicity and gap-identification, were measured. Compared to young and middle-aged listeners, olde...

Tomoko Okuno, University of Michigan Debra M. Hardison, Michigan State University This study examined factors affecting perception training of vowel duration in L2 Japanese with transfer to production. In a pre-test, training, post-test design, 48 L1 English speakers were assigned to one of three groups: auditory-visual (AV) training using waveform displays, auditory-only (A-only), or no traini...