The relationship between formants and speech intelligibility is primarily based on what concept?

The correct answer focuses on formant transitions, which are critical in speech because they serve as key indicators of phonetic content, especially in distinguishing vowel sounds and their corresponding consonants. Formants are resonant frequencies of the vocal tract, and how these frequencies change (or transition) during speech provides important cues for intelligibility.

For instance, when a speaker transitions from one vowel to another or vowel to a consonant, the way that formants move can signal to listeners what sounds are being produced. These transitions help recognize the different phonemes and contribute to the overall clarity of speech. Listeners rely on these transitions to decode speech, especially in noisy environments or when some cues may be masked.

While other options such as pitch variability, sound clarity, and vowel-consonant interactions are relevant to speech perception, formant transitions specifically highlight the dynamic aspect of speech that directly correlates to how well listeners can understand spoken language, making them essential to speech intelligibility.