Vowel perception in noise
Joan Besing, Richard R. Hurtig, Miranda Collins · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1985
Vowel confusion data presented by Pickett [J. Pickett, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 29, 613–620 (1957)] were reanalyzed using a multidimensional scaling procedure. The data were analyzed using this method to determine the relative contribution of each dimension under different noise and context conditions. The original data were collected using vowels produced in phonetically balanced words and bVb syllables under different noise spectra conditions. Data were fit with a three-dimensional solution; two dimensions were comparable to F1 and F2. The subject weights provided estimates of the relative salience of each dimension for each noise condition. Examination of those weights indicated that the relative salience of each dimension varied with vowel context. Dimensions one and three were more heavily weighted for bVb contexts. Dimensions two and three were weighted more heavily for phonetically balanced contexts. Differences in weighting of each dimension yielded perceptual representations that were distortions of the traditional representation of vowel space in terms of F1 and F2.