The contribution of the visual modality to vowel perception in native and non-native speakers
Rankin, Sinéad M. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Solé Sabater, Maria Josep (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Data:	2025
Resum:	This study examines how visual cues impact the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech for native listeners. English CVC words with vowels involving salient (e. g. , lip-spreading for /iː/) and non-salient visual cues (neutral lips for /ɪ/) produced by two French speakers and a native English control, were presented to native English listeners who identified the word heard. Tokens were presented in both auditory-only and audiovisual (AV) mode in cafeteria noise at -15 dB SNR. The visual cues analysed were lip spreading, lip rounding, jaw opening and tongue frontness in vowels, as well as lip-rounding in schwa. Visually salient cues improved vowel intelligibility, compared to non-visual cues, but the audiovisual benefit varied across vowel features and speaker groups. The presence of lip-spreading for /iː/ (vs /ɪ/) and jaw-opening for /æ/ (vs /ɪ/) enhanced intelligibility (i. e. , larger AV benefit) for both speaker groups. However, compared to the English speaker, lip-rounding in /ɔː/ and /ə/ produced by French speakers (likely accompanied by lip protrusion) had a smaller, or negative AV benefit. These results suggest that the influence of L1 gestures on L2 production may reduce or negatively affect intelligibility. Furthermore, French productions of /ɑː/ exhibited unusually high AV benefits, suggesting an extreme jaw-opening for this vowel in an attempt to distinguish between L2 contrasts (/æ ʌ ɑː/) not present in the L1.
Ajuts:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2023-150120NB-I00 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2020-117804GB-I00
Nota:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Visual cues ; Vowels ; Intelligibility ; L2 speech ; French ; English ; Speech in noise
Publicat a:	Journal of Phonetics, Vol. 108 (january 2025) , art 101375, ISSN 1095-8576

DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2024.101375

20 p, 1.8 MB

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