Perception of synthetic vowels by monolingual Canadian-English, Mexican-Spanish, and Peninsular-Spanish listeners

Monolingual-Western-Canadian-English listeners, monolingual-Mexican-Spanish listeners, and monolingual-Peninsular-Spanish listeners classified stimuli from a synthetic vowel continuum which allowed for English /ι/, /I/, /ε/, /E/, and Spanish /ι, /ει/, and /ε/ responses. The continuum varied systematically in initial formant values, vowel inherent spectral change, and vowel duration. The portion of the stimulus space for which the English listeners' modal response was English /ι/ was identified as Spanish /ι/ by both groups of Spanish listeners. Three quarters of the portion of the stimulus space for which the English listeners' modal response was English /I/ was identified as Spanish /ι/ and one-quarter as Spanish vγ4105 /ε/ by Mexican-Spanish listeners, but almost all of this portion of the stimulus space was identified as Spanish /ε/ by Peninsular-Spanish listeners. Spanish dialect may therefore have a substantial effect on first-language-Spanish listeners' learning of the Western-Canadian-English /ι/-/I/ contrast.