The influence of sentence articulation rate on the internal structure of phonetic categories

TLDR: In this article, a series of 215ms syllables were created that ranged from /bi/ through /pi/ to a breathy, exaggerated version of /pi/, and they were asked whether the rate at which a sentence is articulated can have the same comprehensive effect.

Abstract: Numerous experiments have shown that listeners perceive phonetic distinctions in a rate‐dependent manner A case in point is the /b/–/p/ voicing distinction, specified by voice onset time (VOT) One standard rate effect is a shift in the/b/–/p/ boundary toward longer VOT values as speech becomes slower Both a slowing of the target syllable itself and a slowing of the sentence containing the target syllable produce the effect A recent investigation [J L Miller and L E Volaitis, Percept Psychophys 46, 505–512 (1989)] demonstrated that when speaking rate is specified by the target syllable, it alters not only the location of the category boundary, but also which stimuli within a category are judged to be the best exemplars of that category In the present investigation, it was asked whether the rate at which a sentence is articulated can have the same comprehensive effect A series of 215‐ms syllables were created that ranged from /bi/ through /pi/ to a breathy, exaggerated version of /pi/; VOT varie