Intrinsicf0 differences in spoken and sung vowels and their perception by listeners

We explore how listeners perceive distinct pieces of phonetic information that are conveyed in parallel by the fundamental frequency (f0) contour of spoken and sung vowels. In a first experiment, we measured differences inf0 of /i/ and /a/ vowels spoken and sung by unselected undergraduate participants. Differences in “intrinsicf0” (withf0 of /i/ higher than of /a/) were present in spoken and sung vowels; however, differences in sung vowels were smaller than those in spoken vowels. Four experiments tested a hypothesis that listeners would not hear the intrinsicf0 differences as differences in pitch on the vowel, because they provide information, instead, for production of a closed or open vowel. The experiments provide clear evidence of “parsing” of intrinsicf0 from thef0 that contributes to perceived vowel pitch. However, only some conditions led to an estimate of the magnitude of parsing that closely matched the magnitude of produced intrinsicf0 differences.