Haskins Publications

Number	152
Year	1974
Drawer	3
Entry Date	05/21/1998
Authors	Dorman, M. F.
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Publication	Perception & Psychophysics, 15, 215-220.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0152.pdf
Abstract	Used an auditory evoked response (AER) technique to study the discrimination of stop consonants. 50 undergraduates were presented a string of stimuli from the phonetic category (ba) (the standard stimulus) and were asked to detect the occurrence of a stimulus from the same phonetic category (within-category shift) or from a different phonetic category (pa) (across-category shift). Both the across- and within-category shift stimuli differed equally from the standard stimulus in the time of onset of the 1st formant and in the amount of aspiration in the 2nd and 3rd formants. The N1-P2 response of the AER was larger to the across-category than to the within-category shift. The within-category shift did not differ from a no-shift control. Findings suggest that (a) the AER can reflect the relative discriminability of stop consonants drawn from the same or different phonetic categories in a manner similar to other behavioral measures, and (b) the detailed acoustic representation of stop consonants is transformed into a categorized phonetic representation within 200 msec after stimulus onset.
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