A cross-linguistic investigation of cues to vowel length perception

This study investigated the perception of a vocalic length contrast from a cross-linguistic perspective. Native speakers of three languages with a phonemic vowel length contrast (Thai, Japanese, and German) and of one language without such a contrast (Spanish) were presented with three series of vowel continua ranging from a short to a long vowel. All listeners performed a categorial AXB forced-choice task. The stimuli in the first series differed in duration only, those in the second series contained in addition a falling f0 from 260 to 180 Hz over each of the vowels. The third series contained conflicting cue stimuli in which the spectral cues remained that of the short vowel throughout the continuum while the long comparison vowel had different spectral properties. The results indicate that, based on durational cues alone, listeners’ judgment of vowel length varied with language background. Furthermore, the vowel length judgments of all listeners, regardless of language background, were influenced by spectral cues. Only Japanese listeners exploited fundamental frequency as cue to vowel length. The results suggest that patterns of co-occurrence of phonetic properties in the native language as well as intrinsic cue salience determine cue exploitation.