THE PROCESS OF SPEECH SOUND DISCRIMINATION (TEKUSHCHEE RASPONZNAVANIE ZVUKA RECHI),

Articulation movements were studied in a rapid repetition of speech sounds. It was found that 100-150 msec after a transition from vowel to consonant occurs in the audible signal, the articulation apparatus of the subject assumes a consonant state. This undifferentiated state may fail to coincide with any of the consonants found in the given language. As new information comes in, it is more and more specified until a full correspondence with perceived consonant is attained. The specification goes on until all information on the consonant becomes available. The above results go to testify that articulation reflects the very mechanism by which the discriminative arrangement in the brain operates. It reflects the very process of the running synthesis of the articulation image of the consonant. This is contrary to the point of view which assumes that at first a phonemical classification is evoked in the mind. The authors uphold the theory according to which the process of discrimination of speech sounds involves a recoding of acoustic information into an articulative image. Author