Speaking Rate from Proximal and Distal Contexts Is Used during Word Segmentation

A series of eye-tracking and categorization experiments investigated the use of speaking-rate information in the segmentation of Dutch ambiguous-word sequences. Juncture phonemes with ambiguous durations (e.g., [s] in "eens (s)peer," "once (s)pear," [t] in "nooit (t)rap,&quo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 2011-06, Vol.37 (3), p.978-996
Main Authors: Reinisch, Eva, Jesse, Alexandra, McQueen, James M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation - methods
Audition
Auditory Perception
Biological and medical sciences
Classification
Classification (Cognitive Process)
Comprehension
Context Effect
Contextual Associations
Cues
Culture
Dependent Variables
Evaluation
Experimental psychology
Experiments
Eye Movements
Eye tracking
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Human Body
Humans
Indo European Languages
Language
Language Processing
Listeners
Pattern Recognition, Physiological
Perception
Phonemes
Phonetics
Position tracking
Production and perception of spoken language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Recognition (Psychology)
Reference Values
Segmentation
Speech Acoustics
Speech Communication
Speech Perception
Speech Rate
Stimuli
Time Perception
Word Recognition
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Summary:A series of eye-tracking and categorization experiments investigated the use of speaking-rate information in the segmentation of Dutch ambiguous-word sequences. Juncture phonemes with ambiguous durations (e.g., [s] in "eens (s)peer," "once (s)pear," [t] in "nooit (t)rap," "never staircase/quick") were perceived as longer and hence more often as word-initial when following a fast than a slow context sentence. Listeners used speaking-rate information as soon as it became available. Rate information from a context proximal to the juncture phoneme and from a more distal context was used during on-line word recognition, as reflected in listeners' eye movements. Stronger effects of distal context, however, were observed in the categorization task, which measures the off-line results of the word-recognition process. In categorization, the amount of rate context had the greatest influence on the use of rate information, but in eye tracking, the rate information's proximal location was the most important. These findings constrain accounts of how speaking rate modulates the interpretation of durational cues during word recognition by suggesting that rate estimates are used to evaluate upcoming phonetic information continuously during prelexical speech processing. (Contains 6 figures and 6 tables.)
ISSN:0096-1523
1939-1277
DOI:10.1037/a0021923