Krumbiegel Julius, Ufer Carina, Blank Helen
Institute for Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2022 Aug;152(2):820. doi: 10.1121/10.0013363.
Different speakers produce the same intended vowel with very different physical properties. Fundamental frequency (F) and formant frequencies (F), the two main parameters that discriminate between voices, also influence vowel perception. While it has been shown that listeners comprehend speech more accurately if they are familiar with a talker's voice, it is still unclear how such prior information is used when decoding the speech stream. In three online experiments, we examined the influence of speaker context via F and F shifts on the perception of /o/-/u/ vowel contrasts. Participants perceived vowels from an /o/-/u/ continuum shifted toward /u/ when F was lowered or F increased relative to the original speaker's voice and vice versa. This shift was reduced when the speakers were presented in a block-wise context compared to random order. Conversely, the original base voice was perceived to be shifted toward /u/ when presented in the context of a low F or high F speaker, compared to a shift toward /o/ with high F or low F speaker context. These findings demonstrate that that F and F jointly influence vowel perception in speaker context.
不同的说话者发出相同的目标元音时，其物理特性却大不相同。基频（F）和共振峰频率（F）是区分不同嗓音的两个主要参数，它们也会影响元音感知。虽然已有研究表明，如果听众熟悉说话者的嗓音，他们对语音的理解会更准确，但在解码语音流时，这种先验信息是如何被利用的仍不清楚。在三项在线实验中，我们通过F和F的变化研究了说话者背景对/o/-/u/元音对比感知的影响。当F相对于原始说话者的嗓音降低或F增加时，参与者会将/o/-/u/连续体中的元音感知为向/u/偏移，反之亦然。与随机呈现相比，当以分组形式呈现说话者时，这种偏移会减少。相反，与在高F或低F说话者背景下向/o/偏移相比，当在低F或高F说话者背景下呈现原始基础嗓音时，会被感知为向/u/偏移。这些发现表明，F和F在说话者背景中共同影响元音感知。
