Asymmetries in vowel perception, in the context of the Dispersion-Focalisation Theory

Jean-Luc Schwartz (1) , Christian Abry (2) , Louis-Jean Boë (1) , Lucie Ménard (3) , Nathalie Vallée (1)

1 ICP - Institut de la communication parlée
2 CRI - Centre de Recherche sur l'Imaginaire
3 Departement de linguistique et de didactique des langues

In a recent paper in this journal, Polka & Bohn (2003) report on a robust asymmetry effect in vowel discrimination, present in infants as well as adults. They interpret this effect as a preference for peripheral vowels, providing an anchor for comparison. We discuss their data in the framework of the Dispersion-Focalisation Theory of vowel systems. We show that focalisation, that is the convergence between two consecutive formants in a vowel spectrum, is likely to provide the ground for anchor vowels, by increasing their perceptual salience. This enables to explain why [y] is an anchor vowel, as well as [i], [a] or [u]. Furthermore, we relate the asymmetry data to an old experiment we had done on the discrimination of focal vs. non-focal vowels. Altogether, it appears that focal vowels, more salient in perception, provide both a stable percept and a reference for comparison and categorisation.

Domaines: Psychologie; Linguistique; Informatique

Jean-Luc Schwartz, Christian Abry, Louis-Jean Boë, Lucie Ménard, Nathalie Vallée. Asymmetries in vowel perception, in the context of the Dispersion-Focalisation Theory. Speech Communication, 2005, 45, pp.425-434. ⟨hal-00370494⟩