Test of differentiation of phonemic feature contrasts

Abstract

A new CVC multiple-choice articulation test was developed for use in phoneme and feature confusion analyses. The phoneme differentiation test consists of 200 test items: four tokens each of 22 initial consonant contrasts, 13 final consonant contrasts, and 15 syllable nucleus contrasts. The major difference between the phoneme differentiation test and previous closed-response tests is that for each stimulus word the alternatives were designed to provide contrasts in only one phonemic feature at a time. Thus the set of contrasts for each stimulus is different from the set of contrasts for every other stimulus. Voicing, nasality, manner, and place are contrasted for consonant stimuli. Place, openness, and intrinsic duration are contrasted for vowel stimuli. The test was given to a sample of hypacusic listeners, and was applied in low-pass filtering experiments with normal-hearing listeners. The findings for both clinical and experimental groups are in general agreement with those of previous studies. Several findings in the present study support the theory that phonemes are confused one feature at a time. Applications of this test and the minimal-contrast technique it employs are suggested.