Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• KOJIMA, S
• KIRITANI, S

Titel

Vocal-auditory functions in the chimpanzee: vowel perception

Ist Teil von

• International journal of primatology, 1989-06, Vol.10 (3), p.199-213

Ort / Verlag

New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum

Erscheinungsjahr

1989

Quelle

SpringerLINK Contemporary (Konsortium Baden-Württemberg)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The perception of vowels was studied in chimpanzees and humans, using a reaction time task in which reaction times for discrimination of vowels were taken as an index of similarity between vowels. Vowels used were five synthetic and natural Japanese vowels and eight natural French vowels. The chimpanzees required long reaction times for discrimination of synthetic (i) from (u) and (e) from (o), that is, they need long latencies for discrimination between vowels based on differences in frequency of the second formant. A similar tendency was observed for discrimination of natural (i) from (u). The human subject required long reaction times for discrimination between vowels along the first formant axis. The phenomenon of perceptual constancy in speech perception was studied in chimpanzees using natural vowels and a synthetic (o)-(a) continuum. The chimpanzees ignored the difference in the sex of the speakers and showed a capacity for vocal tract normalization.