PSYCH 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Vowel Diagram, Vocal Tract, Vocal Folds
3 Feb 2020
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Document Summary
Different languages use different phonemes, english uses 40-45(ish) phonemes. Evolutionary constraints on the vocal tract (humans can produce about 100 different sounds). Evolutionary constraints on phoneme choices: ease of production balanced against ease of perception. Example vowel triangle: a, i, u (ah, ee, ooh). Almost every language with 3 vowel sounds has all three. Word use and phoneme combinations in distinct languages are often really different. Categorical perception: we perceive the sounds of language as falling into their meaningful phonemic categories, even though we can sense differences in the acoustic stream. Brain based: temporal lobes important for auditory categorization. Also learned all babies before the age of one can distinguish every phoneme in all languages. Loses the ability to distinguish those not in their own language. Critical period for language not just due to changes in hearing/auditory complex: Voiced sounds are those that occur when your vocal cords are vibrating.
