An investigation of categorical speech discrimination by rhesus monkeys

The categorical discrimination of synthetic human speech sounds by rhesus macaques was examined using the cardiac component of the orienting response. A within-category change which consisted of stimuli differing acoustically in the onset of F2 and F3 transitions, but which are identified by humans as belonging to thesame phonetic category, were responded to differently from a no-change control condition. Stimuli which differed by the same amount in the onset of F2 and F3 transitions, but which human observers identify as belonging toseparate phonetic categories, were differentiated to an even greater degree than the within-category stimuli. The results provide ambiguous data for an articulatory model of human speech perception and are interpreted instead in terms of a feature-detector model of auditory perception.

[1]  M H Bagshaw,et al.  Multiple measures of the orienting reaction and their dissociation after amygdalectomy in monkeys. , 1968, Experimental neurology.

[2]  F. Graham.  Chapter 5 – Habituation and Dishabituation of Responses1 Innervated by the Autonomic Nervous System , 1973 .

[3]  R K Clifton,et al.  Heart-rate change as a component of the orienting response. , 1966, Psychological bulletin.

[4]  Terry G. Halwes,et al.  Discrimination in speech and nonspeech modes , 1971 .

[5]  C Weisbard,et al.  Heart-rate change as a component of the orienting response in monkeys. , 1971, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[6]  D. Klatt,et al.  Phonetic Ability and Related Anatomy of the Newborn and Adult Human, Neanderthal Man, and the Chimpanzee , 1972 .

[7]  P. Morse.  The discrimination of speech and nonspeech stimuli in early infancy. , 1972, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[8]  L. S. Frishkopf,et al.  Neural coding in the bullfrog's auditory system a teleological approach , 1968 .

[9]  C. D. Corman.  Stimulus generalization of habituation of the galvanic skin response. , 1967, Journal of experimental psychology.

[10]  P. D. Eimas,et al.  Selective adaptation of linguistic feature detectors , 1973 .

[11]  J. A. Williams.  Novelty, GSR, and stimulus generalization. , 1963, Canadian journal of psychology.

[12]  Peter D. Eimas,et al.  Some properties of linguistic feature detectors , 1973 .

[13]  M. Studdert-Kennedy,et al.  Theoretical notes. Motor theory of speech perception: a reply to Lane's critical review. , 1970, Psychological review.

[14]  A M Liberman,et al.  Perception of the speech code. , 1967, Psychological review.

[15]  Robert V Farese,et al.  Speech Perception in Infants , 1971 .

[16]  Effect of delayed channel on the perception of dichotically presented speech and nonspeech sound. , 1975, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[17]  Alvin M. Liberman,et al.  The Grammars of Speech and Language. , 1970 .

[18]  K. Stevens.  The Potential Role of Property Detectors in the Perception of Consonants , 1975 .

[19]  B..  Auditory and phonetic memory codes in the discrimination of consonants and vowels * , 2022 .

[20]  J. Geer.  GENERALIZATION OF INHIBITION IN THE ORIENTING RESPONSE , 1969 .

[21]  Peter D. Eimas,et al.  Auditory and linguistic processing of cues for place of articulation by infants , 1974 .

[22]  E. Gibson.  Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development , 1969 .

[23]  E. Lenneberg.  Biological Foundations of Language , 1967 .

[24]  Philip Lieberman,et al.  Vocal Tract Limitations on the Vowel Repertoires of Rhesus Monkey and other Nonhuman Primates , 1969, Science.

[25]  Philip Lieberman,et al.  On the evolution of language: A unified view , 1973 .

[26]  F. Graham,et al.  Arousal systems and infant heart rate responses. , 1970, Advances in child development and behavior.

[27]  M. Studdert-Kennedy,et al.  Hemispheric specialization for speech perception. , 1970, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[28]  I. Mattingly.  Speech cues and sign stimuli. , 1972, American scientist.

[29]  A. Liberman,et al.  The discrimination of relative onset-time of the components of certain speech and nonspeech patterns. , 1961, Journal of experimental psychology.

[30]  Diane Kewley-Port,et al.  Early apical stop production: A voice onset time analysis , 1974 .