Speech perception by budgerigars(Melopsittacus undulatus): The voiced-voiceless distinction

Discrimination of synthetic speech sounds from the bilabial, alveolar,and velar voice onset time (VOT) series was studied in 5 budgerigars. The birds were trained, using operant conditioning procedures, to detect changes in a repeating background of sound consisting of a synthetic speech token. Response latencies for detection were measured and were used to construct similarity matrices. Multidimensional scaling procedures were then used to produce spatial maps of these speech sounds, in which perceptual similarity was represented by spatial proximity. The results of these experiments suggest that budgerigars discriminate among synthetic speech sounds from these three VOT continua, especially between those from the bilabial and alveolar series, in a categorical fashion.

[1]  M. Aldenderfer.  Cluster Analysis , 1984 .

[2]  J. Saunders,et al.  Frequency selectivity in bird and man: A comparison among critical ratios, critical bands and psychophysical tuning curves , 1979, Hearing Research.

[3]  R. Dooling,et al.  Nonsimultaneous auditory masking in the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus). , 1985, Journal of comparative psychology.

[4]  R. S. Waters,et al.  Speech perception by rhesus monkeys: The voicing distinction in synthesized labial and velar stop consonants , 1976 .

[5]  Phipps Arabie,et al.  Three-way scaling and clustering. , 1987 .

[6]  P. Kuhl.  Models and Mechanisms in Speech Perception; pp. 374–390 , 1979 .

[7]  Robert J. Dooling,et al.  Hearing in the parakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus): absolute thresholds, critical ratios, frequency difference limens, and vocalizations. , 1975, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[8]  R E Pastore,et al.  Discrimination and labeling of noise-buzz sequences with varying noise-lead times: an example of categorical perception. , 1976, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[9]  Dooling Rj,et al.  Perception of vocal signals by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus). , 1986 .

[10]  Robert J Dooling,et al.  Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): III. Contact calls. , 1988, Journal of comparative psychology.

[11]  T Murry,et al.  Multidimensional analysis of male and female voices. , 1980, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[12]  P. Kuhl.  Discrimination of speech by nonhuman animals: Basic auditory sensitivities conducive to the perception of speech‐sound categories , 1981 .

[13]  S. Soli,et al.  Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): I. Pure tones. , 1987, Journal of comparative psychology.

[14]  B. Repp.  Categorical Perception: Issues, Methods, Findings , 1984 .

[15]  P. Kuhl,et al.  Enhanced discriminability at the phonetic boundaries for the place feature in macaques. , 1983, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[16]  K. Stevens,et al.  Role of formant transitions in the voiced-voiceless distinction for stops. , 1974, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[17]  Murray B. Sachs,et al.  Discrimination of steady‐state vowels by blackbirds and pigeons , 1981 .

[18]  P R Killeen,et al.  Japanese quail can learn phonetic categories. , 1987, Science.

[19]  C S Watson,et al.  Auditory temporal acuity in relation to category boundaries; speech and nonspeech stimuli. , 1988, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[20]  S. Soli,et al.  Perception of synthetic speech sounds by the budgerigar , 1987 .

[21]  R. Dooling,et al.  Perception of species-specific contact calls by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus). , 1985, Journal of comparative psychology.

[22]  R J Dooling,et al.  Hearing in passerine and psittacine birds: a comparative study of absolute and masked auditory thresholds. , 1987, Journal of Comparative Psychology.

[23]  R. Dooling,et al.  Auditory duration discrimination in the parakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus). , 1978, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[24]  D. Pisoni.  Identification and discrimination of the relative onset time of two component tones: implications for voicing perception in stops. , 1977, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[25]  P K Kuhl,et al.  Enhanced discriminability at the phonetic boundaries for the voicing feature in macaques , 1982, Perception & psychophysics.

[26]  S D Soli,et al.  The role of spectral cues in discrimination of voice onset time differences. , 1983, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[27]  C. K. Burdick,et al.  Speech perception by the chinchilla: discrimination of sustained /a/ and /i/. , 1975 .

[28]  Q. Summerfield,et al.  On the dissociation of spectral and temporal cues to the voicing distinction in initial stop consonants. , 1977, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[29]  J D Miller,et al.  Speech perception by the chinchilla: identification function for synthetic VOT stimuli. , 1978, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[30]  R J Dooling,et al.  Temporal integration of acoustic signals by the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus). , 1985, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[31]  J. D. Miller,et al.  Speech perception by the chinchilla: voiced-voiceless distinction in alveolar plosive consonants , 1975, Science.

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

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

[34]  K Okanoya,et al.  Obtaining acoustic similarity measures from animals: a method for species comparisons. , 1988, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[35]  I. Borg.  Multidimensional similarity structure analysis , 1987 .

[36]  Patricia K. Kuhl,et al.  The special-mechanisms debate in speech research: Categorization tests on animals and infants. , 1987 .

[37]  S. Soli,et al.  Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): II. Vocal signals. , 1987, Journal of comparative psychology.

[38]  R N Shepard,et al.  Multidimensional Scaling, Tree-Fitting, and Clustering , 1980, Science.