Effect of Acoustic Cues in Fricatives on Perceptual Confusions in Preschool Children

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Abstract
Seventeen preschool children were tested to determine their ability to discriminate among the fricatives /s, z, f, v, θ, and ð/presented in consonant‐vowel (CV) and vowel‐consonant (VC) combinations with each of three vowels/ɑ, i, aɪ/. Syllable pairs were presented to the children for each possible fricative comparison, with consonant position and vowel being the same in any one pair. The stimulus tape was analyzed to determine durations of the consonants and vowels, peak amplitude of the fricatives, and center frequency and bandwidth of the resonance curves of each of the fricatives. The contribution of these acoustic cues to discrimination among the fricatives was evaluated. The voiced‐unvoiced distinction appears to be facilitated in VC syllables by the ratio of consonant duration to vowel duration. The fricatives /s/ and /z/ are set apart from the other fricatives by their high intensity, high frequency, and shorter spectrums, thus making discriminations between /s/ or /z/ and the other fricatives considerably easier than discriminations among /f/, /v/, /θ/, and /ð/. The highest discrimination error rates are observed in the pairs /f‐θ/ and /v‐ð/, where there are neither voicing differences nor significant spectral differences between the two fricatives. Considerably lower discrimination error rates are observed when either voicing differences are present between two fricatives or there are significant spectral differences.

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