Marginal phonemic contrasts yield marginal perceptual sensitivity
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Phonetics & Phonology, Psycholinguistics
Location
MBSC Omaha Room 304
Start Date
19-10-2024 12:30 PM
End Date
19-10-2024 1:00 PM
Abstract
Some phonemic contrasts are more prototypically contrastive than others (Hall, 2013; Hualde, 2004; Renwick & Ladd, 2016; Renwick & Nadeu, 2019). While contrastive (as revealed by the existence of minimal pairs), some sound distinctions are also involved in phonological alternations, others are severely limited in their distribution, and others have low functional load (minimal pairs are scarce). This leads to marginal contrastivity (Hall, 2013). This is the case for Portuguese mid vowel contrasts. Since the lack of contrastivity leads to reduced perceptual sensitivity (Johnson & Babel, 2010), we ask whether listeners are less perceptually sensitive to marginally contrastive phonetic distinctions than to prototypically contrastive ones.
This study addresses this question by means of a psycholinguistic investigation of Portuguese mid vowels. The study consisted of a lexical decision task with sound substitutions (Broersma & Cutler, 2008; Díaz et al., 2012; Sebastián-Gallés et al., 2005). A large sample of 77 L1 Portuguese speakers was recruited for the study. Critical nonwords were created by substituting the key vowel phoneme, a mid vowel, with a neighboring vowel one step up or down the height scale. For instance, b[o]ca ‘mouth’ became the nonwords b[u]ca and b[ɔ]ca, and p[ɔ]rta ‘door’ became the nonwords p[o]rta and p[a]rta. Participants heard a list of words and nonwords via headphones, and they responded “as fast and accurately as possible” as to whether the item they heard was a real word or not. The experiment had three conditions: High (swapping a high and a mid vowel: /i/ à [e] and /e/ à [i]), Mid (swapping two mid vowels: /e/ à [ɛ] and /ɛ/ à [e]), and Low (swapping a low and a mid vowel: /a/ à [ɛ] and /ɛ/ à [a]).
The results indicated that listeners were more accurate and faster in the High and Low conditions than in the Mid condition. This suggests that perceptual sensitivity—in auditory lexical processing—is modulated by contrastivity. The psychological reality of contrastivity is not dichotomous but gradient. We conclude that marginal phonemic contrasts yield reduced perceptual sensitivity in spoken word recognition.
Marginal phonemic contrasts yield marginal perceptual sensitivity
MBSC Omaha Room 304
Some phonemic contrasts are more prototypically contrastive than others (Hall, 2013; Hualde, 2004; Renwick & Ladd, 2016; Renwick & Nadeu, 2019). While contrastive (as revealed by the existence of minimal pairs), some sound distinctions are also involved in phonological alternations, others are severely limited in their distribution, and others have low functional load (minimal pairs are scarce). This leads to marginal contrastivity (Hall, 2013). This is the case for Portuguese mid vowel contrasts. Since the lack of contrastivity leads to reduced perceptual sensitivity (Johnson & Babel, 2010), we ask whether listeners are less perceptually sensitive to marginally contrastive phonetic distinctions than to prototypically contrastive ones.
This study addresses this question by means of a psycholinguistic investigation of Portuguese mid vowels. The study consisted of a lexical decision task with sound substitutions (Broersma & Cutler, 2008; Díaz et al., 2012; Sebastián-Gallés et al., 2005). A large sample of 77 L1 Portuguese speakers was recruited for the study. Critical nonwords were created by substituting the key vowel phoneme, a mid vowel, with a neighboring vowel one step up or down the height scale. For instance, b[o]ca ‘mouth’ became the nonwords b[u]ca and b[ɔ]ca, and p[ɔ]rta ‘door’ became the nonwords p[o]rta and p[a]rta. Participants heard a list of words and nonwords via headphones, and they responded “as fast and accurately as possible” as to whether the item they heard was a real word or not. The experiment had three conditions: High (swapping a high and a mid vowel: /i/ à [e] and /e/ à [i]), Mid (swapping two mid vowels: /e/ à [ɛ] and /ɛ/ à [e]), and Low (swapping a low and a mid vowel: /a/ à [ɛ] and /ɛ/ à [a]).
The results indicated that listeners were more accurate and faster in the High and Low conditions than in the Mid condition. This suggests that perceptual sensitivity—in auditory lexical processing—is modulated by contrastivity. The psychological reality of contrastivity is not dichotomous but gradient. We conclude that marginal phonemic contrasts yield reduced perceptual sensitivity in spoken word recognition.