Auditory Testing of a Simplified Description of Vowel Articulation

Abstract

An auditory test to establish the adequacy of an idealized specification of vowel articulation is described. Articulatory configurations of the vocal tract are specified by means of three numbers: the position of the point of greatest constriction, the degree of constriction at that point, and the size of the mouth opening. The stimuli in the recorded test are the outputs of 279 such configurations of an electrical vocal tract analog. All sound samples are highly similar in duration, intensity, start-stop characteristics, and fundamental frequency and inflection. The instructions to subjects are standardized, and are of two types: one restricts responses to one of nine vowel categories while the other permits a nonvowel response as well. Subjects were experienced in phonetic transcription. The ranges of articulatory configurations identified as given vowels by the subjects are plotted as contours, and these data are compared to results of other investigators. Certain disagreements are pointed out and discussed. The results, in general, show good agreement with previous data, and demonstrate, therefore, the adequacy of the three-number articulatory description. This work was supported by funds from the Air Force Cambridge Research Center.