The Perception of Quantity in Icelandic

Abstract

Abstract Numerous studies, both in speech production and perception, have found that the acoustic representation of speech segments is heavily context-dependent. In particular the durations of speech sounds do not have fixed values but vary depending on their immediate context, speech tempo etc. In spite of this variability, the perceiver usually perceives correctly what the speaker intended to say. Two theoretical accounts have been given of this fact. On the one hand it has been postulated that the listener perceives correctly by taking into account the context of the speech segment he hears (the theory of normalization). Another view is that speech sound variability is primarily a surface phenomenon, and that invariants can be found in the speech wave on a closer analysis (the theory of constancy). The present study investigates the merits of these theories in the context of Icelandic speech perception. The experimental results show that normalization plays only a minor role in the perception of quantity in Icelandic.