Manner asymmetries in the perception of laryngeal contrast: A noise-masking experiment in Russian

The issue of the effect of consonant manner on the perceptibility of laryngeal contrast was addressed. Previous studies of perceptual confusion suggest that, in noise, the laryngeal contrast in fricatives is more difficult to perceive than stops for listeners in English, which is typologically classified as an “aspirating” language. The present study examined whether a similar pattern is observed in Russian, which is typologically classified as a “true-voice” language. Native listeners of Russian identified voiced and voiceless obstruents in Gaussian white noise conditions. The results demonstrate that voicing in stops is more confused than that in fricatives in noise, indicating a trend that is the opposite of that observed for English. The results suggest that the pattern of manner asymmetries in the perception of laryngeal contrast is not universal.