Acoustic cue weighting across modalities in a non-native sound contrast

This work investigates the production and perception of the English stop voicing contrast on multiple acoustic dimensions by native speakers of Seoul Korean. Subjects completed a production task as well as a forced-choice identification task on stimuli varying on three acoustic dimensions (aspiration duration, pitch, and closure duration) in both English and Korean. On average, native Korean listeners relied more on pitch than on aspiration duration to categorize the English stop voicing contrast (which native English listeners distinguish primarily by aspiration). However, individual categorization patterns differed considerably, with some listeners using only pitch, some using only aspiration, and most using both. In contrast, in production, aspiration duration was a better predictor of voicing category than pitch, although pitch was still a stronger predictor than previously found in native English productions. The heavier reliance on pitch by Korean listeners may be attributable to the greater importance of pitch in their native stop contrast; however, there does not appear to be a consistent, straightforward mapping of English sounds onto the Korean categories. Results will be discussed in the terms of the perception-production interface on the level of individual acoustic cues, as well as the influence of native language cue weights on non-native sound contrasts.