Adults' perception and production of the English vowel /i/

This study investigated the link between the perception and production of t he English vowel /i/ by adult native speakers of English. Participants firs t produced the vowel /i/ using normal (citation) and careful (hyperarticula ted) speech, then completed a method of adjustment task in which they selec ted their ideal exemplar of /i/. In this perceptual task, 24 of 35 particip ants had a prototype, the remaining 11 did not, but were retained For compa rison. In keeping with the hyperspace effect (K. Johnson, E. Flemming, & R. Wright, 1993), all participants selected perceptual stimuli with F1 and F2 valves that were more extreme (i.e., higher and further forward in the vow el space) than those of their normal, citation productions. An analysis of Front-back and high-low qualities for the perceptual and production data in Euclidian space revealed that hyperarticulated speech was closer to the pe rceptual data than citation speech was, but only for participants with rela tively clear-cut prototypes. The basis For such individual variation in per ception-production links is discussed.