Identification of vowels excerpted from neutral and nasal contexts.

In a number of previous studies, subjects have been shown to have some difficulty in identifying vowels presented in isolation, even when the vowels have been produced with considerable precision. However, equivalent precision of utterance can not be assumed in more ordinary speech situations. In the present study, the effect of two consonantal contexts on the identifiability of vowels was investigated. Six speakers produced ten monophthongal English vowels in two different phonetic contexts: neutral (h——d) and nasal. The vowels were excerpted from context and presented for identification. Subjects found the phonetic context to affect vowel identifiability significantly.Subject Classification: [43]70.30, [43]70.40, [43]70.70.