Perception and Production of Singleton and Geminate Stops in Japanese: Implications for the Theory of Acoustic Invariance

The theory of relational acoustic invariance claims that there are stable acoustic properties in speech signals that correspond to a phonological feature, and that the perception system utilizes these acoustic properties for stable perception of a phoneme. The present study examines whether such an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Phonetica 2015-10, Vol.72 (1), p.43-60
Main Authors: Amano, Shigeaki, Hirata, Y.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Adolescent
Asian Continental Ancestry Group
Female
Humans
Japan
Japanese language
Language
Length (Phonological)
Male
Mora
Original Paper
Phonemes
Phonetics
Sound Spectrography
Speech Acoustics
Speech Perception
Speech production
Speech Production Measurement
Speech rate
Stops
Word length
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The theory of relational acoustic invariance claims that there are stable acoustic properties in speech signals that correspond to a phonological feature, and that the perception system utilizes these acoustic properties for stable perception of a phoneme. The present study examines whether such an invariance exists in native listeners' perception of Japanese singleton and geminate stops despite variability in speaking rate and word length, and whether this perception corresponds to production. Native Japanese listeners identified singleton and geminate stops in continua of 3- and 4-mora words spoken at different speaking rates. Results indicated that the perception boundary is well predicted by a linear function with two variables: durations of stop closure and the (C)V(C)CV portion (with the contrasting stops underlined) of the 3- and 4-mora words. In addition, these two variables were in a consistent relationship for both perception and production of words containing 2-4 moras. The results support the relational acoustic invariance theory.
ISSN:0031-8388
1423-0321
DOI:10.1159/000430099