@article {513,
	title = {Both Contextual and Talker-Bound F0 Information Affect Voiceless Fricative Perception},
	year = {2022},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {Speech perception is sensitive to context. An example of this is the contrastive effect of fundamental frequency (F0) on the perception of voiceless fricatives{\textquoteright} spectral center of gravity (CoG) (e.g., Niebuhr, 2017). However, whether knowledge about a talker{\textquoteright}s characteristic mean F0 can produce similar effects remains unknown. The present study therefore investigated the effects of contextual (Exp 1) and talker-bound (Exp 2) F0 information on the perception of the voiceless fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/. In Experiment 1, in a 2AFC task, native Dutch listeners (N=10) categorized target words as the Dutch words {\textquotedblleft}sok{\textquotedblright} /sɔk/ or {\textquotedblleft}sjok{\textquotedblright} /ʃɔk/ embedded in a carrier sentence ({\textquotedblleft}Nu komt het woord...{\textquotedblright}) in 3 intermixed F0 conditions. The fricatives were tokens from a synthetic 8-step fricative continuum from /s/ to /ʃ/. The carrier sentence was pitch shifted {\textpm}4 semitones to create High-F0 and Low-F0 context conditions, alongside a Mid-F0 (i.e., non-shifted) control condition. Ambiguous fricatives were perceived as more /s/-like in Low-F0 sentences compared to High-F0 sentences. In Experiment 2, new participants (N=32) first listened to 20 minutes of speech (exposure) from the same talker whose voice had been consistently pitch-shifted up (High-F0 group) or down (Low-F0 group) {\textpm}4 semitones. Afterwards, a 5-step subset of the original 8-step fricative continuum was used in a 2AFC task where participants categorized stimuli without carrier sentences as {\textquotedblleft}sok{\textquotedblright} or {\textquotedblleft}sjok{\textquotedblright}. The continuum was again perceived as more /s/-like for the Low-F0 group compared to the High-F0 group. Together, the findings suggest that listeners use not only the immediate context but also previously established knowledge about talkers{\textquoteright} typical F0 to interpret incoming speech sounds.

References

Niebuhr, O. (2017). On the perception of {\textquotedblleft}segmental intonation{\textquotedblright}: F0 context effects on sibilant identification in German. EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing, 2017(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13636-017-0115-3
},
	author = {Ulu{\c s}ahin, Orhun and Hans Rutger Bosker and James M. McQueen and Meyer, Antje}
}
