Auditory Tests with Synthetic Vowels

Abstract

The results are given for a series of phonetic evaluation tests which were made by means of synthetically produced vowel sounds. By emploment of synthetically produced sounds, a number of the significant parameters could be varied in an independent and systematic manner without encountering the uncertainties and limitations of the human speech mechanism. The types of parameter changes which were investigated by this means were those of fundamental frequency or pitch, formant frequency and amplitude, and, finally, the number of formants important to a sound. The results of the tests indicate that all of these parameters are important in the evaluation of the sound. In particular, there is a shift in the phonetic evaluation which can be attributed to pitch alone.