Visual influences on the internal structure of phonetic categories

Previous work has demonstrated that the graded internal structure of phonetic categories is sensitive to a variety of contextual factors. One such factor is place of articulation: The best exemplars of voiceless stop consonants along auditory bilabial and velar voice onset time (VOT) continua occur over different ranges of VOT! (Volaitis & Miller, 1992). In the present study, we exploited the McGurk effect to examine whether-visual information for place of articulation also shifts the best-exemplar range for voiceless consonants, following Green and Kuhl's (1989) demonstration of effects of visual place of articulation on the location of voicing boundaries. In Experiment 1, we established that /p/ and /t/ have different best-exemplar ranges along auditory bilabial and alveolar VOT continua. We then found, in Experiment 2, a-similar shift in the best-exemplar range for /t/ relative to that for /p/ when there was a change in visual place of articulation, with auditory place of articulation held constant. These findings indicate-that the perceptual mechanisms that determine internal phonetic category structure-are sensitive to visual, as well as to Auditory, information.

12 citations (Crossref) [2023-10-31] tex.unique-id: ISI:000183134600008 Citation Key: ISI:000183134600008