Reference no: EM133586231

Question: In a research experiment conducted in the early 21st century, research subjects experienced slight, inaudible air puffs on their skin (the right hand and neck) while listening to the American English syllables /pa/ and /ba/. When heard simultaneously with these cutaneous (on-the-skin) air puffs, syllables were more likely to be heard as "aspirated" by the research subjects. Explain these findings in relation to what you know about the aerodynamics of the vocal tract and voice onset time (VOT). Specifically, what does this tell you about the importance of physically-perceptible airflow (not just its acoustic consequences) in distinguishing voiced and voiceless phonemes? How might you use cross-linguistic differences in VOT to confirm the results of this experiment? What type of experiment might be designed, along the lines of the experiment described in this question, that could induce the perception of an implosive consonant?