Spectral peaks and the perception of back vowels
Peter F. Assmann · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1984
Delattre et al. [Word 8, 195–210 (1952)] proposed that the ear effectively averages energy from two formants in close proximity. This position has been supported by Chistovich and Lublinskaya [Hear. Res. 1, 185–195 (1979)] who demonstrated integration effects for formant peaks separated by less than a critical distance of 3 to 3.5 Barks. In a previous report [Assmann and Nearey, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 74, S89-S90 (1983)] it was demonstrated that height differences in steady-state front vowels can be predicted fairly accurately by the center of gravity of the two most prominent harmonics in the F1 region. Similar results were obtained for both low and high fundamental frequencies (125 and 250 Hz) suggesting a variable (f0-dependent) integration range. Results will be presented from experiments examining the perceptual interaction of F1 and F2 in back vowels as a function of formant spacing, fundamental frequency and the levels of harmonics in the region of F1 and F2. [Work supported by SSHRC.]