Effect of voicing on the self-perception of effort in French consonant production

This study aims to understand if and how French subjects perceive vocal effort in a production task. Vocal effort is engaged through all voiced phonemes. Consonants are particularly interesting because they constrain voice production in many ways. To study vocal effort in these phonemes, which also involve articulatory effort, we first want to assess if it is possible for speakers to perceive vocal effort. Ninetysix normal subjects produced 48 minimal pairs of items with a voicing contrast and indicated the item in each pair that required a greater effort. The results show an effect of voicing on the self-perception of effort in French consonants production with a larger effort produced for voiced consonants (62%) than for voiceless ones. This effect is modulated by the manner (stop > fricative), the placement (posterior > anterior) and the context (less vocalic > more vocalic). These results complete the theory of vocal effort mechanisms.