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Language Science > 10 - Speech Perception > Flashcards

10 - Speech Perception Flashcards

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1
Q

What is Articulatory Phonetics?

A

Study of speech sounds through the structures of the mouth

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2
Q

Vowels have ______ air flow.

A

Unobstructed

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3
Q

Consonants have ______ airflow.

A

Obstructed

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4
Q

What is Acoustic Phonetics?

A

The study of the acoustic aspects of speech sounds

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5
Q

What are Acoustic Aspects of sound?

A

The physical properites (freq, duration, intensity, etc.)

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6
Q

Why do we use Spectrograms?

A

To study the acoustics of speech

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7
Q

What is Parallel transmission?

A

That we can perceive the difference in phonemes, but in reality there is no clear break between them

(Phonemes are encoded continuously, at the same time)

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8
Q

What is the Segmentation Problem?

A

It’s acoustically hard to tell where words begin and end yet we have no problem perceiving the words

Other languages may sound fast to our ears but, in our own language, we have no problem understanding words when people are actually speaking extremely quickly

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9
Q

What is the Lack of Invariance Problem?

A

There is no one-to-one correspondence between the acoustic cues and the phonemes perceived

One phoneme may have many different acoustic cues.

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10
Q

What is the psychological definition of a phoneme?

A

A category of sounds that we perceive to be the same sound.

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11
Q

Why is there variation in phoneme production?

A

Coarticulation

Variability between speakers

Variability within speakers

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12
Q

What is Coarticulation?

A

Overlapping articulation of phonemes

How we say a word is affected by what comes before and after it

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13
Q

Why is there variability between speakers?

A

Gender

Pitch

Accent

Speed

Age

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14
Q

Why is there variability within speakers

A

People are sloppy speakers

They often say things slightly differently

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15
Q

What experiment did Pollack & Pickett do in 1964?

A

Cut up actual conversation (continuous speech)

Either played words in context or cut them out of context

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16
Q

Are words in context easy to understand?

A

Yes

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17
Q

Are words cut out of continuous speech easy to understand?

A

No

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18
Q

How do we perceive the difference between two tones? How do we label this?

A

As tones get closer and closer in pitch, we begin to lose our ability to discriminate between them and they begin to sound the same

Perception of non-speech is continuous

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19
Q

What is VOT?

A

Voice Onset Time

Time between the consonant release and the voicing start

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20
Q

Which has a higher VOT: voiced stops or voiceless stops?

A

Voiceless

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21
Q

Is the perception of speech continuous?

A

No

There is not place where voiced and voiceless sounds blend and sound the same

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22
Q

What do we call the place where we all perceive the change from voiced to voiceless?

A

Phonemic Boundary

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23
Q

Our perception of consonants is _______.

A

Categorical

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24
Q

What is Categorical Perception?

A

That we perceive consonants at either one or the other. They never sound the same

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25
Why do vowels not show categorical perception?
Vowels occur over a longer timespan We don't need to identify them as quickly
26
What is the Motor Theory of Speech Perception?
We use our knowledge of production to understand speech We can "feel" the movements of someone else's speech so we know what they are saying Perception is based on articulatory information, not just the signal
27
What does the Motor Theory of Speech Perception address?
The lack of invariance problem
28
What is the McGurk Effect?
If you hear /ba/, but see /ga/, you will perceive /da/ Your perception is compromised between what is being heard and what is being seen
29
What could explain the McGurk Effect?
Motor Theory of Speech Perception Top Down Processing
30
What does successful speech perception depends on?
Bottom-up processing of acoustic info Top-down processing by using context, semantics, and syntactic info
31
What are some Top Down Effects in speech processing? | 6
Context Effect Illusions Phonemic Restoration Verbal Transformation Effect Sinewave Speech Backward Speech
32
What is the Context Effect?
Presented sentences in extreme noise The more "sensical" the sentence was, the better it was able to be heard "Accidents kill motorists on the highway" / "Accidents carry honey between the house" / "Around accidents country honey the school"
33
Who came up with the Context Effect? When?
Miller & Isard 1963
34
What was the Illusions Experiment?
Nonsense audio stimulus was presented through a low-pass filter Participants turned this into something they could understand due to top down processing "Pooh kluss free soub eatwull size" => "Two plus three should equal five"
35
Who came up with the Illusions Experiment? When
Miller 1956
36
What is Phonemic Restoration?
People still hear/perceive the missing phoneme ( /s/ ) even when they were told that it was missing
37
Who came up with Phonemic Restoration? When?
Warren 1970
38
What stimuli did Warren use in his Phonemic Restoration experiment?
"The state governors met with their respective legi*cough*latures conveining in their capital city" ``` "It was found that the *eel..." "..was on the axle" Heard "wheel" "..was on the shoe" Heard "heel" "..was on the orange" Heard "peel" "..was on the table" Heard "meal" ```
39
When do we often experience phonemic restoration in our everyday lives?
On the telephone A lot of /s/ sounds are cut off but our brains fill them in
40
Is phonemic restoration easier when the phoneme is obscured by silence or by noise?
Noise
41
What is the Verbal Transformation Effect?
When you hear words over and over again, they can start to sound different Farewell -> Welfare Ace -> Say
42
What is Sinewave Speech?
If we replace speech with tones that match the basic formants, we will hear words in the non-speech signals
43
Who came up with Sinewave Speech?
Remez
44
What is Backward Speech?
Speech signal is split into various segments then these are reversed individually As the segments get shorter, it becomes easier to resolve the backward speech
45
What are three common Top-Down Effects experienced in everyday speech?
Hearing messages in songs played backwards Understanding foreign accents Children mishearing things (What are electrical votes?)
46
What is the Cohort Model?
1ST STAGE: you select a wide cohort based on phonetic info (bottom up) "Jerry saw a d..." Cohort = deck, deal, dog, etc. 2ND STAGE: you narrow the cohort based on more info and other variables (e.g., frequency of occurances) "JErry saw a do...." Cohort = dog, dock, doll, etc. 3RD STAGE: You fit the item into the context "Jerry saw a dog barking in the park" No better options
47
Who came up with the Cohort Model? When?
Maslen-Wilson 1987, 1990
48
What do we call the point where the word becomes unique?
Recognition point Chrysan -> chrysanthemum Eleph -> elephant
49
Do you need to hear the whole word for it to be recognizable
No
50
How fast does the Cohort Model occur?
Extremely quickly. We are not aware that it is happening
51
What online resource works like the Cohort Model?
Google search
52
What is the TRACE Model?
A connectionist model of speech perception Words are represented across different levels: words, phonemes, features These levels interact with each other You hear a sound then you sort through the features -> the phonemes -> find the word Bottom-up with some top-down added in
53
Who came up with the TRACE Model?
McClelland & Elman 1986
54
What is the TRACE Model also called?
Parallel Distributed Processing Model (PDP)
55
What has trouble with speech perception? Why?
Computers also have problems with accents and speech errors Lack of invariance problem causes trouble for computer
56
What do prosodic factors affect?
The overall utterance meaning
57
What are prosodic factors also called?
Suprasegmentals
58
What are prosodic factors?
Stress Intonation Tone Rate or Length Pausing
59
What is Stress?
The emphasis given to syllables and words (longer, louder, higher in Pitch Can distinguish words (reJECT vs. REject; PRESent vs. preSENT)
60
Can words be hard to understand if we put the stress on the wrong syllable?
Yes
61
What is Intonation?
The use of pitch over phrases (Got the keys? vs. Got the keys!) Usually raised for yes/no questions but falling for Wh- questions Misunderstands in emails often occur due to the lack of intonation and texting is even worse than email
62
What is Tone?
Use of pitch over words Not as prominent in English but found in tonal languages, such as Chinese
63
What is Rate or Length in Speech?
Speed of speech Can change meaning of word itself in some language (Spanish = pero (but) vs. perro (dog)) Can alter meaning somewhat in English (excellent vs. eeexceleeent)
64
What is Pausing?
"coffee cake and honey" vs. "coffee, cake, and honey" "106" vs. "100 and 6"
65
Why does artificial speech and "cut-up speech" sound strange?
It often lacks proper prosody Phone numbers, auto reminder calls, voice menus
66
What are 3 Theories of Speech Perception?
Motor Theory of Speech Perception Cohort Model TRACE Model

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