Individual variability in cue weighting for first-language vowels

Payam Ghaffarvand Mokari; Stefan Werner

doi:10.3989/loquens.2017.044

Authors

Payam Ghaffarvand Mokari University of Eastern Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1816-2783
Stefan Werner University of Eastern Finland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5176-8114

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/loquens.2017.044

Keywords:

individual differences, cue weighting, perception, Azerbaijani vowels

Abstract

This study investigates the use of different cues in discrimination of Azerbaijani /oe/ and /ɯ/ vowels. Regarding the large overlap in f₁-f₂ vowel space in the production of these vowels, this study researched for other possible cues in their categorization. Twenty native Azerbaijani listeners were tested through a perceptual identification test. Since f₂ was weighted more consistently through the experiment, it is suggested that f₂ is the primary cue in discriminating of this vowel pair. We observed individual differences in the perceptual weighting of f₂ and f₃ among the listeners. Although most of the participants gave more weight to f₂, some others weighted f₃ heavier than f₂ or gave weight to both cues equally. These findings expand the knowledge on perceptual cue weighting and point the importance of examining cue weighting at the individual level.

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