Phonology

Question 1

Valve at the top of the trachea that hold vocal cords

Answer 1

Larynx

Question 2

Why is the development of the larynx/speech risky?

Answer 2

In nonhuman animals and human infants the larymx is high in the troat, allowing eating and nasal breathing. Only in older humans does the larynx is low enough that it allows for vast sound production, but also you can’t breathe while eating at the same time (choking)

Question 3

According to Ladeforged, how many distinct speech sounds can we make?

Answer 3

600 consonants, 28 vowel sounds

Question 4

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet?

Answer 4

Refers to every speech sound that appears across the word

Question 5

Row headers in the IPA (consonant)

Answer 5

Manner of articulation (trilling)

Question 6

Column header in IPA (consonant)

Answer 6

Place of articulation: where in the mouth is a sound made

Question 7

What do blank white spots in the IPA mean?

Answer 7

Sounds that could theoretically be made but hasn’t been used in any alphabet

Question 8

What do gray spots in the IPA mean?

Answer 8

Sounds that cannot be made

Question 9

Row header in vowel IPA

Answer 9

Toungue’s vertical position row

Question 10

column headers in IPA (vowels)

Answer 10

Tongue’s horizontal position

Question 11

What are the amount of phonemes in English?

Answer 11

20 vowels, 24 consonants due to different pronunciations of vowels and combined sounds (such as /th/)

Question 12

Describe the Spectrograph study

Answer 12

Creates a Spectrogram to see the energy within the sound waves in a sentence such as “I can see you”. Observes the frequency of what is said. We make breaks while making discrete words, and darker bands called formants- carry the weight of the sound even without the other segments

Question 13

Frequency specific band of energy corresponding ot speech sounds- physical properties of speech revealed through a spectogram

Answer 13

Formant

Question 14

Coarticulation

Answer 14

Whenever we produce a consonant , our articulators are already being shaped to produce the following vowel

Question 15

Why did it take so long after the creation of formants to create a speech synthesizers?

Answer 15

Formants change location due to coarticulation, as well as shape- changes depending on what comes after it to make two sounds at once rather than just individual phonemes

Question 16

Is there 1 to 1 mapping between segnents of the speech stream and individual phonemes?

Answer 16

No, because sounds are made based on what comes next

Question 17

Speech is processed similarly to other auditory inputs

Answer 17

Auditory theory

Question 18

Speech is considered special and it is processed using specific motor components of speech production- capitalize on producing speech motors used to interpret what other people are speaking

Answer 18

Motor theory

Question 19

What are the two theories of perceiving speech?

Answer 19

Auditory theory and motor theory

Question 20

How is motor theory related to face perception?

Answer 20

Face are treated as a special kind of object by the brain and are perceived differently by the brain, similar to sound in motor theory

Question 21

What are the main claims of motor theory?

Answer 21

Speech perception is tied to speech production
Speech perception is unique to humans because only humans can produce speech (untrue)

Question 22

What are the three main sources of evidence for motor theory?

Answer 22

Speech perception is bimodal- not just auditory input but also visual inputs (lip reading)
Speech perception is categorical- we hear speech as discrete sounds, we produce discrete phonemes and we hear them as such rather than continuous (found to be untrue)
Speech perception and production are neurologically similar

Question 23

We spontaneously integrate visual and auditory input into a unified perception

Answer 23

Bimodal perception

Question 24

Describe the McGurk Effect

Answer 24

Artificial auditory illusion: hear “ba” and see “ga”, perceive “da”- ambiguity in both forms of input because “ba” and “da” are adjacent in speech, and “da” and “ga” are adjacent in visual input, leads to perceiving ‘’da”.

Question 25

What does the McGurk effect suggest?

Answer 25

Tacit knowledge of how speech is produced (visual) influences how speech is perceived

Question 26

Describe Kuhl and Meltzoff showing four month olds bimodal perceptiosn

Answer 26

One continuously mounted a and the other i, infants looked longer at the face mouthing the vowel; they were currently hearing. A third of the infants vocally imitated the preferred face. Their utterances were qualitatively similar to the adults, suggesting bimodality facilitates with language learning, but also has been present since youth

Question 27

How is categorical perception shown?

Answer 27

Formants are slightly altered to make different noises in a continuum. Sounds between ba and Ga continuum played, early on perceived it as ba, then step 4 they begin perceiving da, and then lastly ga at step 10 or 11. Very sudden and discrete, all or nothing pattern suggesting categorical speech recognition

Question 28

What does categorical perception suggest?

Answer 28

Acoustic properties of speech are continuous yet we perceive speech categorically

Question 29

How did Wilson et al use fMRI to compare speech perception and production?

Answer 29

Found that in colored area=perception, outlined areas=production- neural circuits involved in perception were also involved in production, suggests that perception and production work together

Question 30

What do common neural correlates in speech production and perception suggest?

Answer 30

Overlap implies motor system is used to map acoustic inputs to a phonetic code

Question 31

Do only humans use categorical perception specific to us? What was counterevidence in vision

Answer 31

Animals see colors in discrete perceptions rather than a light continuum

Question 32

How were chinchillas used to observe categorical perception?

Answer 32

Associated a particular sound with a particular reward- drink from different tubes if they heard “da” or “ta”. (Were able to recognize it) Then played a continuum of speech sounds between “da” or “ta”- chinchillas recognition continuum change was similar to English speaker- exclusively to da tube and exclusively to ta tube after some point. Could perceive a discrete different. Used chinchillas because their ears were similar to humans

Question 33

In early studies of speech perception, participants vocally repeated what they heard with a language itself- a discrete response rather than continuum

Answer 33

Counterevidence to categorical perception in humans

Question 34

Describe how Masssaro and Cohen did to research the continuum of categorical perception

Answer 34

Had participants use a slider to show what they heard in a continuum with a slider- ba and da. People do use the middle of the scale in continuum sounds. Statistically, the observed response pattern was more continuous than binary (just playing ba and da)

Question 35

Is speech perception unique to humans?

Answer 35

No, see chinchilla studies, can differentiate between ba and ta

Question 36

Is speech perception categorical?

Answer 36

No, see slider study- can perceive transitions within language

Question 37

Speech perception is tied to speech production ____ and ____. However, this connection?

Answer 37

Speech perception is tied to speech production bimodally and neurologically however Emerges with experience Is built on auditory traits shared with other mammals Does not preclude perception of non-produced sounds.

Question 38

Does not preclude perception of non-produced sounds. Benefits?

Answer 38

Allows distinctions through other languages- for example, Hindi speakers here three syllables along the continuum of ba and da when English speakers don’t

Question 39

Describe categorical perception in English speakers vs Hindi speakers in Werker and Lalonde

Answer 39

English speakers only hear ba and da across the continuum, and Hindi speakers were able to hear ba, another da sound, and an english da

Question 40

What are the explanations for the difference in ba and da in hindi speakers and english speakers?

Answer 40

Hindi speakers acquire a new phonological distinction through exposure and practice English speakers lose a phonological distinction they had been able to make as infants (this is the more accurate one)

Question 41

Describe how the head turn procedure was used to show that children lose the understanding of phonemes.

Answer 41

Child sits with caregiver and are recorder. Speaker plays a sound on different speakers until child gets bored, then plays a different sound to see if child would turn head. 6-8 month olds use head turn on subtle da and big da, but by 11-13 months English speakers lose the ability to recognize the little da similar to English speakers- lose phonological distinction

Question 42

Why do infants in English speaking environment children lose sensitivity to the /da/ and /Da/ contrast?

Answer 42

Children begin to start producing speech leading to them stop perceiving speech that is not used. Similar results have been found for other non-native distinctions

Question 43

Can we reacquire phonological distinctions we lost as infants? Describe in Lively et al.

Answer 43

Yes, but not easily. Found that Japanese speakers can relearn “r” and “l” with extensive training- 7.5 hours (2.5 hours for sessions that were 1 session per week) of hearing minimal contrast pairs and selecting which of two written words (rock and lock). Found that they increased in recognition and speed of recognition over time, and effects persisted but only if words were spoken by different people- suggests within category variation (differences in pronunciations could be distinguished from between category variation (phonetic boundaries)