Jiwon Hwang Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University Factors inducing cross-linguistic perception of illusory vowels BACKGROUND Epenthesis in Japanese loanwords e.g., Chrismas  kurisumasu Perception of illusory vowel: Japanese speakers tended to hear an illusory vowel in illegal clusters significantly more often than French speakers. This phenomenon was also confirmed in an Event-Related Potentials (ERP) experiment and was claimed to occur at the prelexical level (Dupoux et al 1999, Dehaene-Lambertz et al 2000, Dupoux et al 2001). e.g., ebzo  ebuzo Epenthesis in Korean loanwords Vowel epenthesis is much more likely to occur in voiced stop-nasal clusters than in voiceless stop-nasal clusters even though neither is a legal sequence in Korean (stop is always nasalized before a nasal). e.g., magnet  mag  net, jacknife  d  e  naip   Can voicing be an additional factor inducing perception of illusory vowel? DISCUSSION Simple illegality of the clusters in Korean do not induce perception of illusory vowel as Korean listeners’ responses to [ikna]-[ik  na] were similar to English-speaking listeners. Rather, voicing is a determining factor for Korean listeners, as they perceived a vowel only after a voiced stop. This can be explained by the fact that in Korean, voiced stops occur only prevocalically in intersonorant position as an allophone of voiceless stops (Japanese speakers didn’t exhibit voicing effect in Mohanan et al. to appear). There is close relation between perception and production; perception of illusory vowel after voiced stop is reflected in Korean loanwords in which a vowel is more likely to be inserted after voiced stop than after voiceless stop. Selected References Dupoux, E., Kakehi, K., Hirose, Y., Pallier, C., & Mehler, J. (1999). Epenthetic vowels in Japanese: A perceptual illusion? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25(6), Dupoux, E., Pallier, C., Kakehi, K., & Mehler, J. (2001). New evidence for prelexical phonological processing in word recognition. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16(5), Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Dupoux, E., & Gout, A. (2000). Electrophysiological Correlates of Phonological Processing: A Cross-linguistic Study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(4), Monahan, P. J., Takahashi, E., Nakao, C., & Idsardi, W. (to appear). Not All Epenthetic Contexts Are Equal: Differential Effects in Japanese Illusory Vowel Perception. Proceedings of the 17th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (J/K). RESULTS METHOD Participants: 20 English native speakers, normal hearing 20 Korean native speakers, normal hearing Stimuli: (i) igna-ig  na  ikna-ik  na  continua that ranged from no vowel to a full vowel (100ms) at intervals of 20ms. igna - ig  na - ig  na - ig  n a - ig  na - ig  na ikna - ik  na - ik  na - ik  na - ik  na - ik  na 0ms - 20ms - 40ms - 60ms - 80ms - 100ms (ii) vowel duration manipulated from a full vowel (iii) produced by a Korean English bilingual who could pronounce the Korean epenthetic vowel [  ] Acknowledgements This work was supported by NSF grant BCS (PI: Dr. Ellen Broselow). Identification Task: two alternative forced choice (2AFC) Discrimination Task: AXB paradigm, two step size triplet Procedure: experiment conducted in a sound-treated room Practice session before the main session Discrimination task followed by identification task. Figure 2. Discrimination Task Results Figure 1. Identification Task Results Korean listeners reported they heard a vowel about 40% of the time even when there was no vowel at all, but only when the stop was voiced. English-speaking listeners reported hearing a vowel in [igna] when the vowel was longer than 20ms. Korean listeners were less accurate distinguishing [igna] and [ig  na] compared to English group. The two language groups did not show a significant difference for [ikna]-[ik  na] either in identification or in discrimination task. a. Correct responses b. Reaction times a. Correct responses b. Reaction times HYPOTHESES If the phonotactic properties of native language induce perception of illusory vowel,  Korean native speakers should report hearing a vowel in stop nasal clusters more often than control English group regardless of voicing of the stop. If voicing induces bias toward perception of illusory vowel for Korean listeners,  Korean native speakers should report hearing a vowel in voiced stop-nasal clusters more often than voiceless stop-nasal but control English group should not show different responses to them.