Haskins Publications

Number	1044
Year	1997
Drawer	19
Entry Date	06/29/1998
Authors	Fowler, Carol A., and Brown, Julie M.
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Publication	Perception & Psychophysics, 59 (5), 1997, 729-738.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1044.pdf
Abstract	We explore how listeners perceive distinct pieces of phonetic information that are conveyed in parallel by the fundamental frequency (f 0) contour of spoken and sung vowels. In a first experiment, we measured differences in f 0 of /i/ and /a/ vowels spoken and sung by unselected undergraduate participants. Differences in “intrinsic f 0” (with f 0 of /i/ high than of /a/_ were present in spoken and sung vowels; however, differences in sung vowels were smaller than those in spoken vowels. Four experiemtns tests a hypothesis that listeners would not hear the intrinsic f 0 differences as differences in pitch on the vowel, because they provide information, instead, for production of a closed or open vowel. The experiments provide clear evidence of “parsing” of intrinsic f 0 from the f 0 that contributes to perceived vowel pitch. However, only some conditions led to an estimate of the magnitude of parsing that closely matched the magnitude of produced intrinsic f 0 differences.
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