Kinematic evidence of centering during vowel production

When producing a vowel, productions that begin relatively far from the center of a speaker’s acoustic F1-F2 distribution for that vowel tend to move towards the center of the distribution by the vowel midpoint, a phenomenon known as centering. To date, centering has been only demonstrated in the acoustic signal. Here, we examine whether centering can also be seen at the level of speech kinematics. Using electromagnetic articulography to track the tongue, jaw and lips, we show that centering is observable in the kinematic signal, most clearly in the tongue dorsum. We also show that centering begins to occur in the kinematic signal prior to vowel onset, consistent with the idea that the phenomenon is not driven purely by auditory feedback.