Abstract
This study aims to test a prediction of recent theoretical frameworks in speech motor control: if
speech production targets are specified in auditory terms, people with better auditory acuity should
have more precise speech targets. To investigate this, we had participants perform speech perception and production tasks in a counterbalanced order. To assess speech perception acuity, we used an adaptive speech discrimination task. To assess variability in speech production, participants performed a pseudo-word reading task; formant values were measured for each recording.
We predicted that speech production variability to correlate inversely with discrimination performance.
The results suggest that people do vary in their production and perceptual abilities, and that better
discriminators have more distinctive vowel production targets, confirming our prediction. This
study highlights the importance of individual differences in the study of speech motor control, and
sheds light on speech production-perception interaction.
