May I ask a question about the Rhode Island accent(s)?

You see, in my research, I came across a few maps of how different words and vowels were pronounced in the 1930s created by Hans Kurath. What they showed was in addition to non-rhoticity (dropping the r at the end of words), the speech of Rhode Island merged the 'cot' and 'caught' vowels, pronounced 'bird' and 'nurse' as 'buhd' and 'nuhse', pronounced words like 'right' as 'ruh-eet' (much like in Canada) and also pronounced 'start' at the front of the mouth, sounding somewhat like 'staht', which are things in common with the Boston accent.

However, the study by William Labov in 2006 shows a very different picture. He only sampled speakers from Providence so I'm not sure if this applies to the rest of the state, but anyway, not only is 'caught' pronounced differently to 'cot', but it's pronounced very high in the mouth, which is famously a New York City feature. In addition, 'start' is pronounced 'staaht', at the back of the mouth very distinct from Boston and Maine accents and more like a New York City accent. In his study, Labov grouped the Providence sample as part of the same accent as Fall River, Massachusetts.

I'm not sure which of these studies to believe, but to my ears, Rhode Island accents sound somewhere in between how they're described above. I did hear from somebody else that a Rhode Island accent is basically a mix of the vowels of a Chicago accent, the consonants of a Boston accent and the intonation of a New York City accent. I think Labov's description may be unique to Providence which developed relatively recently since the 1930s when Kurath's survey was carried out, and I certainly don't doubt that despite it's small size, Rhode Island has different accents depending on the location within the state, at least to residents who have a good ear.

What do you think? Is the Rhode Island accent very similar to a New York accent like Labov said, or does it depend on whether or not you're in Providence, with rural areas sounding more similar to Boston? Feel free to comment.

edit: One last thing, Kurath's maps show that there was once an accent at the end of Long Island, the Hamptons, that sounded just like an Eastern New England accent. Just an interesting detail.