Perception-Production Relations in the Voicing Contrast for Initial Stops in 3-Year-Olds

Abstract

Abstract 34 children (average age 3; 3) furnished perception and production data on five initial voiced-voiceless stop cognates. In addition to the usual systematic effects of place of articulation, significant individual differences were found in both mean produced values of voice onset time (VOT) and mean perceptual boundary in terms of VOT. There was a suggestion of within-sample cross-sectional age trends in both production and perception data. Some restricted correlations between the two types of data were observed and were interpreted as indicating an earlier development of perceptual cue usage than of articulatory control, possibly causative. The restriction appeared to be related to the very low variance in the perception measures. Consideration of average discrepancies between mean perception and mean production data suggested that interpretation of trends in production data may be assisted by taking a measure of the point of overlap between voiced and voiceless productions, rather than the simple average of their means.