Normalization of Vowels by Breath Sounds

Author: Douglas H. Whalen and Sonya M. Sheffert

Abstract:
Listeners use multiple sources of information to normalize vowels for speaker characteristics, both within the utterance and outside of it. The present study was designed to test whether the sound of a breath intake (inspiration) could serve as another source for normalization. Breath sounds are external to the utterance, but can potentially convey two kinds of information: speaker vocal tract characteristics and the upcoming shape of the vocal tract (to the extent that formants might be realized in the inspiration). We tested effects of natural inspiration noise from two speakers (male and female) and three vowel environments on the perception of two synthetic vowel continua. We found that speaker sex affected one continuum, while vowel context affected the other. Although further exploration of this phenomenon is needed, these results suggest that even inspiration noise can provide linguistic information.