Individual variability in cue weighting for first-language vowels

This study investigates the use of different cues in discrimination of Azerbaijani /oe/ and /ɯ/ vowels. Regarding the large overlap in f 1 - f 2 vowel space in the production of these vowels, this study researched for other possible cues in their categorization. Twenty native Azerbaijani listeners were tested through a perceptual identification test. Since f 2 was weighted more consistently through the experiment, it is suggested that f 2 is the primary cue in discriminating of this vowel pair. We observed individual differences in the perceptual weighting of f 2 and f 3 among the listeners. Although most of the participants gave more weight to f 2 , some others weighted f 3 heavier than f 2 or gave weight to both cues equally. These findings expand the knowledge on perceptual cue weighting and point the importance of examining cue weighting at the individual level.