Haskins Publications

Number	183
Year	1975
Drawer	3
Entry Date	07/09/1998
Authors	Cutting, J. E. & Day, R. S.
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Publication	Journal of Phonetics, 3, 99-113.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0183.pdf
Abstract	Phonological fusion occurs when items such as PAY and LAY are presented separately to each ear and listeners report hearing PLAY. Input items that begin with a stop consonant and a liquid fuse especially well. Five experiments with a total of 68 right-handed undergraduates examined the effect of various factors on the frequency of fusion responses. Allophonic variation in the liquids ("trilled" vs plain) had no effect on fusion frequency. Phonemic similarity also had no effect; when the input items differed in all phonemes (PAY and LED) they still fused. However, the phonemic order and location of clusters within a syllable did have a large effect: initial stop-liquid clusters fused readily (PAY/LAY yielded PLAY) while final liquid-stop clusters rarely fused (PEEL/PEED rarely yielded PEEDLED). Various fusion phenomena remained the same when tested in both identification and discrimination paradigms. Fusion scores were not normally distributed over Ss; some Ss fused on most or all trials, while others fused less frequently.
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