Individual variability in cue weighting for first-language vowels

Abstract

This study investigates the use of different cues in discrimination of Azerbaijani /oe/ and /ɯ/ vowels. Regarding the large overlap in f1–f2 vowel space in the production of these vowels, this study researched for other possible cues in their categorization. Twenty native Azerbaijani listeners were tested through a perceptual identification test. Since f2 was weighted more consistently through the experiment, it is suggested that f2 is the primary cue in discriminating of this vowel pair. We observed individual differences in the perceptual weighting of f2 and f3 among the listeners. Although most of the participants gave more weight to f2, some others weighted f3 heavier than f2 or gave weight to both cues equally. These findings expand the knowledge on perceptual cue weighting and point the importance of examining cue weighting at the individual level.