TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluating models of vowel perception
AU - Molis, Michelle R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin. The work was supported by NIH (R01 DC00427-13,-14). The author wishes to thank Randy L. Diehl, Marjorie R. Leek, James M. Hillenbrand, and one unnamed reviewer for comments on an earlier draft. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the author and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense. 1
PY - 2005/8
Y1 - 2005/8
N2 - There is a long-standing debate concerning the efficacy of formant-based versus whole spectrum models of vowel perception. Categorization data for a set of synthetic steady-state vowels were used to evaluate both types of models. The models tested included various combinations of formant frequencies and amplitudes, principal components derived from excitation patterns, and perceptually scaled LPC cepstral coefficients. The stimuli were 54 five-formant synthesized vowels that had a common F1 frequency and varied orthogonally in F2 and F3 frequency. Twelve speakers of American English categorized the stimuli as the vowels /I/, /υ/, or /latin small letter reversed open e with hook sign/. Results indicate that formant frequencies provided the best account of the data only if nonlinear terms, in the form of squares and cross products of the formant values, were also included in the analysis. The excitation pattern principal components also produced reasonably accurate fits to the data. Although a wish to use the lowest-dimensional representation would dictate that formant frequencies are the most appropriate vowel description, the relative success of richer, more flexible, and more neurophysiologically plausible whole spectrum representations suggests that they may be preferred for understanding human vowel perception.
AB - There is a long-standing debate concerning the efficacy of formant-based versus whole spectrum models of vowel perception. Categorization data for a set of synthetic steady-state vowels were used to evaluate both types of models. The models tested included various combinations of formant frequencies and amplitudes, principal components derived from excitation patterns, and perceptually scaled LPC cepstral coefficients. The stimuli were 54 five-formant synthesized vowels that had a common F1 frequency and varied orthogonally in F2 and F3 frequency. Twelve speakers of American English categorized the stimuli as the vowels /I/, /υ/, or /latin small letter reversed open e with hook sign/. Results indicate that formant frequencies provided the best account of the data only if nonlinear terms, in the form of squares and cross products of the formant values, were also included in the analysis. The excitation pattern principal components also produced reasonably accurate fits to the data. Although a wish to use the lowest-dimensional representation would dictate that formant frequencies are the most appropriate vowel description, the relative success of richer, more flexible, and more neurophysiologically plausible whole spectrum representations suggests that they may be preferred for understanding human vowel perception.
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U2 - 10.1121/1.1943907
DO - 10.1121/1.1943907
M3 - Article
C2 - 16158661
AN - SCOPUS:23744457105
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 118
SP - 1062
EP - 1071
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 2
ER -