Difference limens for formant frequencies of steady-state and consonant-bound vowels

Abstract

Difference limens (DL) of formant frequencies were measured for two steady-state vowels and the same vowels in symmetric stop-consonant contexts. The stimuli were generated using a computer-programmed synthesizer, and the formant-frequency parameters were adjusted to be steady or symmetric transition functions around the temporal center of the syllable. The DL for the time-varying consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) stimuli were found to be significantly larger than those for the steady-state vowels. In some cases the DL for the second formant was found to be larger in the direction of expected formant shift due to consonantal coarticulation than in the reverse direction. For CV or VC stimuli the increase in vowel-formant DL is reduced. The difference in DL values in and out of context has, at least partially, an auditory origin. However, the phonetic decoding of the CVC stimuli may also contribute to the loss of vowel-quality information.

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