Illusory vowels in perceptual epenthesis: the role of phonological alternations

Abstract

Listeners often perceive illusory vowels when presented with consonant sequences that violate phonotactic constraints in their language. Previous research suggests that the phenomenon motivates speech-perception models that incorporate surface phonotactic information and the acoustics of the speech tokens. In this article, inspired by Bayesian models of speech perception, we claim that the listener attempts to identify target phonemic representations during perception. This predicts that the phenomenon of perceptual illusions will be modulated not only by surface phonotactics and the acoustics of the speech tokens, but also by the phonological alternations of a language. We present the results of three experiments (an AX task, an ABX task and an identification task) with native Korean listeners, and native English listeners as a control group, showing that Korean listeners perceive different sets of illusory vowels in different phonological contexts, in accordance with the phonological processes of vowel deletion and palatalisation in the language.

Which epenthetic vowel? Phonetic categories versus acoustic detail in perceptual vowel epenthesis

“…Thus, so far there is only weak evidence that the mechanism of phonotactic repair takes into account the legality of the resulting CVC-sequence. A stronger effect of cluster-dependent perceptual epenthesis has been reported in Korean listeners, who repair /eSma/ and-to a lesser extent-/ec h ma/ with an epenthetic /i/ instead of the default epenthetic vowel /Ø/ (Durvasula and Kahng, 2015). This is argued to be due to the existence of an allophonic rule that palatalizes /s/ and /t h / before /i/, yielding [Si] and [c h i], respectively.…”

“…Specifically, using artificial consonant clusters obtained by completely removing an inter-consonantal vowel, Dupoux et al (2011) found that the quality of the removed vowel-traces of which are present in the neighboring consonants-influences the quality of the epenthetic vowel. Other studies, however, have argued for an influence of phonological factors, such as the legality of the resulting repair at the phonotactic level (Mattingley et al, 2015) or the presence of phonological alternations in the language (Durvasula and Kahng, 2015). Determining the source of epenthetic vowel quality is important at a theoretical level, because it can shed light on the computational mechanisms underlying the perception of speech sounds.…”

Phonology modulates the illusory vowels in perceptual illusions: Evidence from Mandarin and English

“…In this article, we will argue, in line with some recent work, that we can use such perceptual illusions to get a better understanding of not just if, but also how, phonological knowledge is utilized during speech perception. More specifically, we suggest that, during speech perception, the listener attempts to identify the best estimate of the intended underlying representations of the utterance given their phonological/phonetic knowledge and the acoustics of the utterance (Durvasula & Kahng, 2015;Gaskell & MarslenWilson, 1998;Gow, 2003;Mitterer, Kim, & Cho, 2013, amongst others); this makes specific predictions about the quality of the illusory vowels; we test and corroborate one such consequence-that there can be different illusory vowels in different illicit phonotactic contexts.…”

“…Finally, Durvasula and Kahng (2015) tested Korean speakers' perception of illicit consonantal sequences with English speakers as controls. They showed that, unlike the English speakers presented with the same stimuli, the Korean speakers were perceiving different illusory vowels in different consonantal contexts, and different illusory vowels in some cases for the same context too.…”

“…There is, however, less work on the quality of the illusory vowel. Recently, it has been claimed that the quality of the illusory vowel is also modulated by the phonology of the language, and that the phenomenon of illusory vowels can be understood as a result of the listener reverse inferring the best parse of the underlying representation given their native language phonology and the acoustics of the input stream (Durvasula & Kahng, 2015). The view predicts that listeners are likely to hear different illusory vowels in different phonological contexts.…”