TY - GEN
T1 - Phonetic variation and the recognition of words with pronunciation variants
AU - Sumner, Meghan
AU - Kurumada, Chigusa
AU - Gafter, Roey J.
AU - Casillas, Marisa
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© CogSci 2013.All rights reserved.
PY - 2013/1/1
Y1 - 2013/1/1
N2 - Studies on the effects of pronunciation variants on spoken word recognition have seemingly contradictory results - some find support for a lexical representation that contains a frequent variant, others, an infrequent (but idealized) variant. We argue that this paradox is resolved by appealing to the phonetics of the overall word. In two phoneme categorization studies, we examined the categorization of the initial sounds of words that contain either tap or [t]. Listeners identified the initial sound of items along a voiced-voiceless continuum (e,g, bottom-pottom, produced with word-medial [t] or tap). No preference for word-forming responses for either variant was found. But, a bias toward voiced responses for words with [t] was found. We suggest this reflects a categorization bias dependent on speaking style, and claim that the difference in responses to words with different variants is best attributed to the phonetic composition of the word, not to a particular pronunciation variant.
AB - Studies on the effects of pronunciation variants on spoken word recognition have seemingly contradictory results - some find support for a lexical representation that contains a frequent variant, others, an infrequent (but idealized) variant. We argue that this paradox is resolved by appealing to the phonetics of the overall word. In two phoneme categorization studies, we examined the categorization of the initial sounds of words that contain either tap or [t]. Listeners identified the initial sound of items along a voiced-voiceless continuum (e,g, bottom-pottom, produced with word-medial [t] or tap). No preference for word-forming responses for either variant was found. But, a bias toward voiced responses for words with [t] was found. We suggest this reflects a categorization bias dependent on speaking style, and claim that the difference in responses to words with different variants is best attributed to the phonetic composition of the word, not to a particular pronunciation variant.
KW - lexical representation
KW - phoneme categorization
KW - phonetic variation
KW - pronunciation variation
KW - speech perception
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85050986923&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85050986923
T3 - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2013
SP - 3486
EP - 3491
BT - Cooperative Minds
A2 - Knauff, Markus
A2 - Sebanz, Natalie
A2 - Pauen, Michael
A2 - Wachsmuth, Ipke
PB - The Cognitive Science Society
T2 - 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society - Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics, CogSci 2013
Y2 - 31 July 2013 through 3 August 2013
ER -