UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report

This ultrasound and acoustics study of American English /r/ and /s/ investigates whether variability in production is related to individual differences in vocal tract morphology, namely the shape of the palate. There was reduced articulatory variability for flatter palates for both /r/ and /s/. There was a relationship between acoustics and palate shape for /s/ only, where flatter palates had increased acoustic variability, but for /r/, there was no relationship between palate shape and acoustic variability.