Tracking perception of pronunciation variation by tracking looks to printed words: The case of word-final /t/
Mitterer, H., & McQueen, J. M.
(2007). Tracking perception of pronunciation variation by tracking looks to printed words: The case of word-final /t/. In J. Trouvain, & W. J. Barry (
Eds.),
Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2007) (pp. 1929-1932). Dudweiler: Pirrot.
We investigated perception of words with
reduced word-final /t/ using an adapted eyetracking
paradigm. Dutch listeners followed
spoken instructions to click on printed words
which were accompanied on a computer screen by
simple shapes (e.g., a circle). Targets were either
above or next to their shapes, and the shapes
uniquely identified the targets when the spoken
forms were ambiguous between words with or
without final /t/ (e.g., bult, bump, vs. bul, diploma).
Analysis of listeners’ eye-movements revealed, in
contrast to earlier results, that listeners use the
following segmental context when compensating
for /t/-reduction. Reflecting that /t/-reduction is
more likely to occur before bilabials, listeners were
more likely to look at the /t/-final words if the next
word’s first segment was bilabial. This result
supports models of speech perception in which
prelexical phonological processes use segmental
context to modulate word recognition.
Publication type
Proceedings paper
Share this page