Cues for the Discrimination of American English Fricatives in Spoken Syllables

It has sometimes been assumed that the identification of the fricatives of American English in CV syllables depends primarily on the characteristics of the noise (i.e., nonvocalic) portion of the speech sound. A second possibility is that characteristics of the vocalic portion—previously shown to be cues for the perception of other consonants—are important for the fricatives. These alternatives were tested by combining the noise from one spoken fricative-vowel syllable with the voiced portion of another. Results indicate that the important cues for the fricatives /s/ and /∫/ are given by the noise but that the differentiation of /f/ and /θ/ is accomplished primarily on the basis of cues contained in the vocalic part of the syllable. Similar results were obtained for the voiced counterparts of these sounds.