Perceptive evaluation of segmental cues

In our search for perceptually relevant cues in speech we have taken special interest in pa r t s of the acoustic signal displaying rapid changes and short durations. In "tape splicing" e-xperiments with natural voiceless stops we have found a greater amount of absolute identity of the esplosion than might be expected from ear l ie r studies. This finding ~hou.ld. be taken into accou;lt in speech synthesis. Using colxpeting cues and selectively manipulated explosions we have a sensitive method of testing cuc s in identification tests . For nasals anci la terals , the importance of the consonant vowel boundary re1 ative to the consonantal segment has been studied. Both place and manne r cues a r e investigated by means of manipulated natural spcech a s well a s speech synthesis experiments. Some 10 msec around the boundary proved to radically change the identity in nataral speech. On the other hand, the detailed pattern of the consonantal segment seemed ra ther unimportant.