• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.181-191
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• 2001

The acoustic quality of a vowel is known to be mostly determined by the frequencies of the first formant(Fl) and the second formant(F2). The perceptual(or psychological) dimensions of vowel perception were examined in this study. Also the relationships among perceptual dimensions, acoustical dimensions(Fl & F2), and articulatory gestures of vowel were discussed. Using multi-dimensional scaling(MDS) technique, the experiment was performed in order to identify the perceptual dimensions of the perception of Korean vowel. In the experiment 8 Seoul standard speakers performed the similarity rating task of 10 synthesized Korean vowels. Two-dimensional MDS solution based. on the similarity rating scores was obtained. The results showed that two perceptual dimensions, D1 and D2 were correlated strongly with F2 and F1(r = -.895 and .878 respectively), and were so interpreted as 'vowel advancement' and 'vowel height' respectively. The relationship between the perceptual dimensions of vowel and the articulatory positions of tongue suggested that perception may be directly linked to production. Further research problems were discussed in the .final section.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.163-174
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• 2014

Korean L2 speakers have many problems learning the pronunciation of English words. One of these problems is vowel epenthesis. Vowel epenthesis is the insertion of vowels into or between words, and Korean learners of English typically do this between successive consonants, either within clusters, or across syllables, word boundaries or following final coda consonants. The aim of this study was to investigate whether individual differences in vowel epenthesis are more closely related to the perception and production of segments (vowels and consonants) and prosody or if they are relatively independent from these processes. Subjects completed a battery of production and perception tasks. They read sentences, identified vowels and consonants, read target words likely to have epenthetic vowels (e.g., abduction) and demonstrated stress recognition and epenthetic vowel perception. The results revealed that Korean second-language learners (L2) have problems with vowel epenthesis in production and perception, but production and perception abilities were not correlated with one another. Vowel epenthesis was strongly related to vowel production and perception, suggesting that problems with segments may be combined with L1 phonotactics to produce epenthesis.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.95-103
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• 2009

We investigated the perceptual structure of Korean consonants by analyzing the confusion among consonants in various vowel contexts. The 36 CV syllable types combined by 18 consonants and 2 vowels (/i/ and /u/) were presented with masking noises or in degraded intensity. The confusion data were analyzed by the INDSCAL (Individual Difference Scaling), ADCLUS (Additive Clustering) and the probability of the transmitted information. The results were compared with those of a previous study with /a/ vowel context (Bae and Kim, 2002). The overall results showed that the laryngeal features-aspiration, lax and tense-are the most salient features in the perception of Korean consonant regardless of vowel contexts, but the perceptual saliency of place features varies across vowel conditions. In high vowel (front and back vowel) contexts, sibilant consonants were perceptually salient compared to in low vowel contexts. In back vowel contexts, grave (labial and velar) consonants were perceptually salient. These findings imply that place features and vowel features strongly interact in speech perception as well as in speech production. All statistical measures from our confusion data ensured that the perceptual structure of Korean consonants correspond to the hierarchical structure suggested in the feature geometry (Clements, 1991). We discuss the link between speech perception and production as the basis of phonology.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.11-17
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• 2024

The goal of the current study is to investigate whether L2 learners' perceptual ability regarding epenthetic vowels is interconnected with other aspects of speech recognition, such as lexical stress, sentence focus, and vowel recognition. Twenty-five Korean L2 learners of English participated in perception experiments assessing vowel epenthesis oddity, lexical stress oddity, sentence focus oddity, and vowel identification. Results indicate that accuracy on the vowel epenthesis oddity test is influenced by both lexical stress and sentence focus, suggesting that perceptual ability regarding epenthetic vowels is influenced by the acquisition of L2 rhythmic structure at both word and sentence levels. Additionally, this study identifies a proficiency effect on vowel epenthesis recognition, implying that the influence of L1 phonotactics diminishes as L2 proficiency increases. Taken together, this study illustrates the interaction between perceptual abilities in vowel epenthesis and prosodic stress in the field of L2 speech perception.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.124-130
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: The study investigated vowel context effects on the perception of stop consonants in Malayalam. It also probed into the role of vowel context effects in determining the frequency of occurrence of various consonant-vowel (CV) syllables in Malayalam. Subjects and Methods: The study used a cross-sectional pre-experimental post-test only research design on 30 individuals with normal hearing, who were native speakers of Malayalam. The stimuli included three stop consonants, each spoken in three different vowel contexts. The resultant nine syllables were presented in original form and five gating conditions. The consonant recognition in different vowel contexts of the participants was assessed. The frequency of occurrence of the nine target syllables in the spoken corpus of Malayalam was also systematically derived. Results: The consonant recognition score was better in the /u/ vowel context compared with /i/ and /a/ contexts. The frequency of occurrence of the target syllables derived from the spoken corpus of Malayalam showed that the three stop consonants occurred more frequently with the vowel /a/ compared with /u/ and /i/. Conclusions: The findings show a definite vowel context effect on the perception of the Malayalam stop consonants. This context effect observed is different from that in other languages. Stop consonants are perceived better in the context of /u/ compared with the /a/ and /i/ contexts. Furthermore, the vowel context effects do not appear to determine the frequency of occurrence of different CV syllables in Malayalam.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.124-130
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: The study investigated vowel context effects on the perception of stop consonants in Malayalam. It also probed into the role of vowel context effects in determining the frequency of occurrence of various consonant-vowel (CV) syllables in Malayalam. Subjects and Methods: The study used a cross-sectional pre-experimental post-test only research design on 30 individuals with normal hearing, who were native speakers of Malayalam. The stimuli included three stop consonants, each spoken in three different vowel contexts. The resultant nine syllables were presented in original form and five gating conditions. The consonant recognition in different vowel contexts of the participants was assessed. The frequency of occurrence of the nine target syllables in the spoken corpus of Malayalam was also systematically derived. Results: The consonant recognition score was better in the /u/ vowel context compared with /i/ and /a/ contexts. The frequency of occurrence of the target syllables derived from the spoken corpus of Malayalam showed that the three stop consonants occurred more frequently with the vowel /a/ compared with /u/ and /i/. Conclusions: The findings show a definite vowel context effect on the perception of the Malayalam stop consonants. This context effect observed is different from that in other languages. Stop consonants are perceived better in the context of /u/ compared with the /a/ and /i/ contexts. Furthermore, the vowel context effects do not appear to determine the frequency of occurrence of different CV syllables in Malayalam.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.107-120
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• 2006

The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether Korean learners can use the vowel duration cue to distinguish voicing contrasts in word-final consonants in English. Given that the Korean group's performance on the auditory task was much better than their performance on the identification task or on the production task, we conclude that the AX discrimination task makes contact with a different layer of perception. In particular, the AX discrimination task can be done at the auditory or phonetic level, where differences in vowel length are still encoded in the representation. In contrast, the identification and production tasks are probing the mental representation of vowel length and voicing. It was also founded that Korean speakers stored neither vowel length nor voicing in memorized representations and did not internalize the lengthening of the preceding vowel as a rule to differentiate the voicing contrasts of final consonants, even though they were able to detect the acoustic differences in vowel duration provided that they were tested in an appropriate task.

• MALSORI
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• no.64
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• pp.1-14
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the acoustic perception different by formants change for profoundly hearing impaired children with cochlear implants. The subjects were 10 children after 15 months of experience with the implant and mean of their chronological age was 8.4 years and Standard deviation was 2.9 years. The ability of auditory perception was assessed using acoustic-synthetic vowels. The acoustic-synthetic vowel was combined with F1, F2, and F3 into a vowel and produced 42 synthetic sound, using Speech GUI(Graphic User Interface) program. The data was deal with clustering analysis and on-line analytical processing for perception ability of acoustic synthetic vowel. The results showed that auditory perception scores of acoustic-synthetic vowels for cochlear implanted children were increased in F2 synthetic vowels compaire to those of F1. And it was found that they perceived the differences of vowels in terms of distance rates between F1 and F2 in specific vowel.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.1
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• pp.201-211
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• 1997

Acoustically a naturally-spoken vowel is composed of five formants. However, the acoustic quality of a vowel is known to be mostly determined by $F_1\;and\;F_2$. The main purpose of this study was to examine how synthesized vowels with $F_1\;and\;F_2$ are perceived by Korean native speakers. In addion, we are interested in finding whether the synthesized vowels are perceived differently by standard Korean speakers and Kyungnam regional dialect speakers. In the experiment 9 Seoul standard Korean speakers and 9 Kyungnam dialect speakers heard 536 vowels synthesized in vowel space with $F_1\;by\;F_2$ and categorized them into one of 10 Korean vowels. The resultant vowel map showed that each Korean vowel occupies an unique area in the two-dimensional vowel space of $F_1\;by\;F_2$, and confirmed that $F_1\;and\;F_2$ play important roles in the perception of vowels. The results also showed that the Seoul speakers and the Kyungnam speakers perceive the synthesized vowels differently. For example, /e/ versus /$\varepsilon$/ contrast, /y/, and /$\phi$/ are perceived differently by the Seoul speakers, whereas they were perceptually confused by the Kyungnam speakers. These results might be due to the different vowel systems of the standard Korean and the Kyungnam regional dialect. While the latter uses a six-vowel system which has no /e/ vs /$/ contrast, /v/ vs /i/ contrast, /y/, and /$\phi$/, the former recognizes these as different vowels. This result suggests that the vowel system of differing dialect restricts the perception of the Korean vowels. Unexpectedly /i/ does not occupy any area in the vowel apace. This result suggests that /i/ cannot be synthesized without $F_3$.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2008

The main goal of this study is to examine if there is a difference in the utilization of a vowel length cue between Korean and Japanese L2 learners of English in their perception and production of postvocalic coda contrast in English. Given that Japanese subjects' performances on the identification and production tasks were much better than Korean subjects' performance, we may support the prediction based on the Feature Hypothesis which maintains that L1 phonological features can facilitate the perception of L2 acoustic cue. Since vowel length contrast is a phonological feature in Japanese but not in Korean, the tasks, which assess L2 leaners' ability to discriminate vowel length contrast in English, are much easier for the Japanese group than for the Korean group. Although the Japanese subjects demonstrated a better performance than the Korean subjects, the performance of the Japanese group was worse than that of the English control group. This finding implies that L2 learners, even Japanese learners, should be taught that the durational difference of the preceding vowels is the most important cue to differentiate postvocalic contrastive codas in English.