Dominant Formants in Phoneme Perception
Louis R. Focht · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1963
The 1860 Helmholtzian theory of fixed-frequency vowel perception has at times been neglected in recent years because of discrepancies between it and the observed data. The von Helmholtz theory was reexamined during a preliminary study of the minimal stimulus requirements needed to produce a desired phonetic response in the human. Results indicate that the introduction of a single dominant formant concept that plays a major role in the perception of phonemic sounds leads to a better agreement with data. An effective frequency can be associated with this dominant formant that is near the actual formant frequency, but is modified somewhat by two factors. The first of these relates to the other formants present, the second to the phonemic environment. This sheds light on such factors as the alterations in the perceived phonemic response during the speeding up of a phonograph and during the prolonged listening to a sustained phoneme. It also accounts for the shifts in response due to the varying phonetic environment. Experimental results are shown.