Abstract
Perception of sounds along the phonetic dimensionstop vs. continuant was studied by means of a selective adaptation procedure. Subjects first identified a series of synthetic consonant-vowel syllables whose formant transitions varied in duration, slope, and amplitude characteristics. They were perceived as either [ba] or [wa]. After the initial identification test, an adapting stimulus was presented repeatedly, and then the subjects again identified the original test series. Adapting with a stop (either [ba] or [da]) led to a decrease in the number of test stimuli identified as [ba], whereas adapting with the continuant sound [wa] led to an increase in the number of [ba] identification responses. Removing the vowel portion of an adapting stimulus greatly reduced the identification shift only when the resulting stimulus was no longer perceived as speech-like. A reduction in the number of [ba] identifications occurred even when a nonspeech “stop” (the sound of a plucked string) was used as the adapting stimulus, suggesting that phonetic processing is not a necessary condition for an adaptation effect.
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Blumstein, S. E., & Stevens, K. N.Property detectors for bursts and transitions in speech perception. Paper presented at the 89th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Austin, Texas, April 1975.
Bailey, P. J., & Haggard, M. P.Cue-specific adaptation to speech sounds. Paper presented at the 89th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Austin, Texas, April 1975.
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This research was conducted while the author was at the University of Minnesota and was supported in part by a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship to the author and by grants to the University of Minnesota, Center for Research in Human Learning, from the National Science Foundation (GB-35703X), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-01136), and from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 89th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Austin, Texas, April 1975.
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Diehl, R. Feature analyzers for the phonetic dimensionstop vs. continuant . Perception & Psychophysics 19, 267–272 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204180
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204180