10. Perceptual dimensions of phonemic recognition.

In order to isolate the major perceptual dimensions involved in the recognition of selected English consonants, four experiments were conducted. The first experiment attempted to characterize the nature of the perceptual space for English consonants, while the second was a replication and extension of the first, with the results being analyzed using multidimensional scaling (MDS). The third experiment attempted to test the predictive validity of the original MDS interpretation. The fourth experiment was a preliminary investigation of the impact of the method of measuring perceptual proximity upon the scaling solution using a proximity measure derived from a number of verbal rating scales. Two major perceptual dimensions were clearly isolated, and a third dimension also appeared, although with less consistency than the first two.