Categorical features in speech perception and production.

Multidimensional scaling analyses of three types of English consonant confusions are reported: consonant substitutions in spontaneous speech errors, CV perceptural confusions, and VC perceptual confusions. Two data sets of each type are analyzed to assess reliability. Three reliable dimensions emerge in all data sets, corresponding to voicing, stop/fricative, and place of articulation. Representation of consonants in terms of categorical phonological features exhaustively describes what is common to the configurations of different data types, even though there is reliable detail within each data type that is not captured by categorical features. Such features can be viewed as groupings of speech sounds common to various perception and production processes.