Quality of a vowel with formant undershoot: a preliminary perceptual study

In this study vowels in /CVC/ environments are compared with steady state vowels to investigate the perceived vowel quality change caused by undershoot. This study uses a perceptual task, whereby listeners match constant /CVC/ stimuli of /bVb/ or /dVd/ to variable /#V#/ stimuli, using a schematic grid on a PC screen. The grid represents an acoustic vowel diagram, and the subjects change the F1/F2 frequencies of /#V#/ by moving a mouse. The main results of the study show that while subjects referred to the trajectory peak of the /CVC/ stimuli in vowel quality perception, their performance was also affected by the formant trajectory range of the stimuli. When the formant trajectory range was small, they selected a value between the edge and peak frequencies, while they selected a value outside the trajectory range when it was large.