Patterns of response to within-category acoustic variation in dichotically presented stimuli
Edward John Carney, Charles Speaks · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1977
As in a previous experiment [Carney and Speaks, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 59, S7(A) (1976)], two sets of tapes for dichotic listening were prepared from synthetic stop-vowel stimuli which varied on a voice onset time (VOT) continum. Each set contained the same three voiced syllables (ba, da, ga) in combination with one of two sets of voiceless syllables which differed in VOT by 30 msec from set I to set II. The two sets of voiceless syllables differed only in acoustic structure, not in subjects' identification. Six stimulus-onset asynchronies were used for each of eight subjects, and, in the present experiment, the syllables were aligned by onset of their consonantal portions. Analysis of errors revealed that subjects used V features to construct “blend” error responses significantly more often in set II (longer VOT) than in set I. Results are discussed with reference to “graded feature detectors” [Miller, Percept. Psychophys. 18, 389–397 (1975)] and an alternative “decision” model. [Work supported by USPHS Grant No. NS-12125.]