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Re: Stop consonant identification based on initial spectra?




You are looking for the classic papers of my former teacher, Sheila Blumstein:

Blumstein SE. Stevens KN. Acoustic invariance in speech production: evidence from measurements of the spectral characteristics of stop consonants. [Journal Article] Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 66(4):1001-17, 1979 Oct.

and

Blumstein SE. Stevens KN. Perceptual invariance and onset spectra for stop consonants in different vowel environments. [Journal Article] Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 67(2):648-62, 1980 Feb.


--Robert

PS: I too vote we stop with the pet anecdotes and get onto the much more interesting questions just raised by other people!

At 11:06 02/03/05 -0500, you wrote:
I'm sorry to interrupt the current frenzy of pet anecdotes (in which no one
has yet mentioned fish)...

I'm looking for a reference that reports whether or not humans can identify
stop consonants based on their initial spectra--before the formant
transitions to the following vowel. Secondarily (though I suppose more
fundamentally), are the initial spectra (first 10 msec or however long
*before* formant transitions) invariant with respect to following vowels?
Differences between voiced and unvoiced?

Background: I had been well indoctrinated in the motor theory of speech
perception, teaching my students the wonders of categorical perception of
stop consonants despite widely varying formant transition profiles across
different vowels (i.e., /di/ looks rather different than /du/ but we
identify /d/ in both). A recent conference poster looking at
neurophysiological spectral representation in non-human primate suggested
that response to spectra of stop consonants (without the following formant
transitions) was sufficient to distinguish and identify them. Alas, I did
not get the relevant human reference and have been unable to find one in an
informal search of my reference books and MEDLINE.

Thanks in advance,
Peter

: Peter Marvit, PhD                          <pmarvit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> :
: Dept. Anatomy and Neurobiology    University of Maryland Medical School:
: 20 Penn Street, HSF II, Room S251                  Baltimore, MD 21201 :
: phone 410-706-1272      http://www.theearlab.org     fax 410-706-2512 :

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Robert J. Zatorre, Ph.D.
Montreal Neurological Institute
3801 University St.
Montreal, QC Canada H3A 2B4
phone: 1-514-398-8903
fax: 1-514-398-1338
web site: www.zlab.mcgill.ca