Sources of variability in phonetic perception: The joint influence of listener and talker characteristics on perception of the Korean stop contrast

Where there is dialectal variability in production of a sound contrast, listeners from the two dialects may show parallel differences in perception. At the same time, perception is not static and can be influenced by other factors, including listeners’ experience with, and expectations about, different talkers. This work examines perception of the Korean three-way stop phonation contrast by listeners of two dialects of Korean. We examine to what extent listeners’ perception reflects production norms in their local community and, via a reverse matched-guise task, test whether their knowledge of cross-dialectal variability plays an active role in the way they categorize the contrast. While perception appears to reflect production norms on a broad level, we found age-related differences in perception, even for listener groups who showed no sign of a parallel difference in production. Furthermore, listeners showed different response patterns depending on the apparent dialect of the talker. Our results suggest that exposure to dialectal variability and expectations about the talker influence perception