Abstract
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was used to compare perceptual maps for 10 synthetic English vowels in humans and Old World monkeys (Macaca fuscata andCercopithecus albogularis). Subjects discriminated among the vowels using a repeating background procedure, and reaction times were submitted to an MDS analysis to derive measures of perceived similarity. The dimensions that emerged related to the frequencies of the first(F1), second(F2), and third(F3) formants. Human data indicated a good match to previous MDS studies using rating procedures or confusion matrices: The dominant dimension mapped onto vowelF2, the phonetically most important formant, and the second and third dimensions mapped ontoF1 andF3, respectively.For monkeys, equal weightings occurred forF1 andF2, andF3 was not clearly represented. Monkey sensitivity to the formants appeared to relate to formant amplitudes. If monkeys are giving an accurate representation of the psychoacoustic relations among the formants, then our human results suggest that species-specific mechanisms, reflecting the salience of the phonetic feature of advancement, may contribute to vowel coding in humans.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brown, C. H., &Sinnott, J. M. (1990). The perception of complex acoustic patterns in noise by Blue monkey(Cercopithecus mitis) and human listeners.International Journal of Comparative Psychology,4, 79–90.
Brown, C. H., Sinnott, J. M., &Kressley, R. A. (1994). Perception of chirps by Sykes’s monkeys(Cercopithecus albogularis) and humans(Homo sapiens).Journal of Comparative Psychology,108, 243–251.
Brown, S. D., Dooling, R. J., &O’grady, K. E. (1988). Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli in budgerigars(Melopsittacus un-dulatus): III. Contact calls.Journal of Comparative Psychology,102, 236–247.
Delattre, P. J., &Freeman, D. (1967). A dialect study of American R’s by X-ray motion picture.Linguistics,44, 29–68.
Dooling, R. J., &Brown, S. D. (1990). Speech perception by budgerigars(Melopsittacus undulatus): Spoken vowels.Perception & Psychophysics,47, 568–574.
Dooling, R. J., Brown, S. D., Park, T. J., Soli, S. D., &Okanoya, K. (1987). Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars(Melopsittacus undulatus): I. Pure tones.Journal of Comparative Psychology,101, 139–149.
Dooling, R. J., Park, T. J., Brown, S. D., Okanoya, K., &Soli, S. D. (1987). Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars(Melopsittacus undulatus): II. Vocal signals.Journal of Comparative Psychology,101, 367–381.
Fox, R. A., Flege, J. E., &Munro, M. J. (1995). The perception of English and Spanish vowels by native English and Spanish listeners: A multidimensional scaling analysis.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,97, 2540–2551.
Green, S. (1975). Variation of vocal pattern with social situation in the Japanese monkey: A field study. In L. Rosenbloom (Ed.),Primate behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 1–101). New York: Academic Press.
Kojima, S., &Kiritani, S. (1989). Vocal-auditory functions in the chimpanzee: Vowel perception.International Journal of Primatology,10, 199–213.
Kuhl, P. K. (1991). Human adults and human infants show a “perceptual magnet effect” for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not.Perception & Psychophysics,50, 93–107.
Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Shankweiler, D. P., &Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1967). Perception of the speech code.Psychological Review,74, 431–461.
Peterson, G. E., &Barney, H. L. (1952). Control methods used in the study of vowels.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,24, 175–184.
Pfingst, B. E., Hienz, R. D., Kimm, J., &Miller, J. (1975). Reaction time procedure for measurement of hearing: I. Suprathreshold functions.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,57, 421–430.
Pols, L. C. w., van der Kamp, L. J., &Plomp, R. (1969). Perceptual and physical space of vowel sounds.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,46, 458–467.
Rakerd, B. (1984). Vowels in consonantal context are perceived more linguistically than are isolated vowels: Evidence from an individual differences scaling study.Perception & Psychophysics,35, 123–136.
Rakerd, B., &Verbrugge, R. R. (1985). Linguistic and acoustic correlates of the perceptual structure found in an individual differences scaling study of vowels.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,77, 296–301.
Schiffman, S. S., Reynolds, M. L., &Young, F.W. (1981).An introduction to multidimensional scaling. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Shepard, R. N. (1972). Psychological representation of speech sounds. In E. Davis & P. Denes (Eds.),Human communication: A unified view (pp. 67–113). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Singh, S., &Woods, D. R. (1970). Perceptual structure of 12 American English vowels.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,49, 1861–1866.
Sinnott, J. M. (1989). Detection and discrimination of synthetic English vowels by Old World monkeys(Cercopithecus, Macaca) and humans.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,86, 557–565.
Sinnott, J. M. (1994). Comparisons of human and monkey differential sensitivity to speech, non-speech and monkey speech sounds. In J. Menon (Ed.),Current topics in acoustic research (pp. 355–364). Trivandrum, India: Research Trends.
Sinnott, J. M. (1995). Methods to assess the processing of speech sounds by animals. In G. Klump, R. Dooling, R. Fay, & W. Stebbins (Eds.),Methods in comparative psychoacoustics (pp. 281–292). Basel: Birkhauser.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was supported by NIDCD Grants K04 DC 00042 and R01 DC 00541 to J.M.S.and R01 DC 00164 to C.H.B. Portions of these data were presented at the fall 1993 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Denver.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sinnott, J.M., Brown, C.H., Malik, W.T. et al. A multidimensional scaling analysis of vowel discrimination in humans and monkeys. Perception & Psychophysics 59, 1214–1224 (1997). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214209
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214209