Linguistic and acoustic correlates of the perceptual structure found in an individual differences scaling study of vowels

Subjects judged the similarities among a set of American English vowels (/i,I,q,1,v,a,c,o,0,u/) presented in isolation or in a /dVd/ consonantal frame. Individual differences scaling was employed to analyze these similarities data for each of the conditions separately and for the two conditions combined. In all cases, perceptual dimensions corresponding to the advancement, height, and tenseness vowel features were recovered. Given the determinacy of individual differences scaling, this finding is taken to provide strong evidence for the perceptual significance of those features. The perceptual dimensions are considered in relation to various acoustic parameters of the stimuli employed in this study. They are also considered in relation to perceptual dimensions that have been observed in other vowel scaling studies.