Contextual effects on the perception of duration

English speakers perceive silent intervals with the same duration as longer when preceded by shorter vocalic intervals [Kluender et al. ‘‘Vowel length differences before voiced and voiceless consonants: An auditory explanation,’’ J. of Phonetics, 16, 153–169 (1988)]. This may be due to sequential contrast effects which exaggerate perceptual differences between neighboring segments. In Japanese, vowels are longer before geminates than before singletons [Han ‘‘Acoustic manifestations of more timing in Japanese,’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96, 73–82 (1994)]. Reflecting this correlation, Japanese speakers perceive silent intervals with the same duration as longer (as more ‘‘geminatelike’’) when preceded by longer vowels. The same pattern holds when non‐speech analogs are used in place of speech stimuli: silent intervals are judged as longer when preceded by longer anharmonic buzzes. These results suggest that the perception of silent duration by Japanese speakers follows the pattern predicted from the acoustic prop...

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