Contextual effects in the perception of fricative place of articulation: a rotational hypothesis

According to the interactive model of consonant place of articulation perception, the vowel context not only biases place decisions but also affects the processing of the place cues. Data on the perception of French fricative-vowel syllables suggest that contextual effects are indeed interactive, thereby confirming previous findings in Dutch. Further, these data suggests a new formulation of the contextual rules for place of articulation perception in terms of rotational movements around a central reference corresponding to the neutral vowel (“schwa”).