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The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation

A prerequisite for spoken language learning is segmenting continuous speech into words. Amongst many possible cues to identify word boundaries, listeners can use both transitional probabilities between syllables and various prosodic cues. However, the relative importance of these cues remains unclea...

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Autores principales: Matzinger, Theresa, Ritt, Nikolaus, Fitch, W. Tecumseh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8007974/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33796045
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.622042
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author Matzinger, Theresa
Ritt, Nikolaus
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
author_facet Matzinger, Theresa
Ritt, Nikolaus
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
author_sort Matzinger, Theresa
collection PubMed
description A prerequisite for spoken language learning is segmenting continuous speech into words. Amongst many possible cues to identify word boundaries, listeners can use both transitional probabilities between syllables and various prosodic cues. However, the relative importance of these cues remains unclear, and previous experiments have not directly compared the effects of contrasting multiple prosodic cues. We used artificial language learning experiments, where native German speaking participants extracted meaningless trisyllabic “words” from a continuous speech stream, to evaluate these factors. We compared a baseline condition (statistical cues only) to five test conditions, in which word-final syllables were either (a) followed by a pause, (b) lengthened, (c) shortened, (d) changed to a lower pitch, or (e) changed to a higher pitch. To evaluate robustness and generality we used three tasks varying in difficulty. Overall, pauses and final lengthening were perceived as converging with the statistical cues and facilitated speech segmentation, with pauses helping most. Final-syllable shortening hindered baseline speech segmentation, indicating that when cues conflict, prosodic cues can override statistical cues. Surprisingly, pitch cues had little effect, suggesting that duration may be more relevant for speech segmentation than pitch in our study context. We discuss our findings with regard to the contribution to speech segmentation of language-universal boundary cues vs. language-specific stress patterns.
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spelling pubmed-80079742021-03-31 The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation Matzinger, Theresa Ritt, Nikolaus Fitch, W. Tecumseh Front Psychol Psychology A prerequisite for spoken language learning is segmenting continuous speech into words. Amongst many possible cues to identify word boundaries, listeners can use both transitional probabilities between syllables and various prosodic cues. However, the relative importance of these cues remains unclear, and previous experiments have not directly compared the effects of contrasting multiple prosodic cues. We used artificial language learning experiments, where native German speaking participants extracted meaningless trisyllabic “words” from a continuous speech stream, to evaluate these factors. We compared a baseline condition (statistical cues only) to five test conditions, in which word-final syllables were either (a) followed by a pause, (b) lengthened, (c) shortened, (d) changed to a lower pitch, or (e) changed to a higher pitch. To evaluate robustness and generality we used three tasks varying in difficulty. Overall, pauses and final lengthening were perceived as converging with the statistical cues and facilitated speech segmentation, with pauses helping most. Final-syllable shortening hindered baseline speech segmentation, indicating that when cues conflict, prosodic cues can override statistical cues. Surprisingly, pitch cues had little effect, suggesting that duration may be more relevant for speech segmentation than pitch in our study context. We discuss our findings with regard to the contribution to speech segmentation of language-universal boundary cues vs. language-specific stress patterns. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8007974/ /pubmed/33796045 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.622042 Text en Copyright © 2021 Matzinger, Ritt and Fitch. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Matzinger, Theresa
Ritt, Nikolaus
Fitch, W. Tecumseh
The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
title The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
title_full The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
title_fullStr The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
title_full_unstemmed The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
title_short The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
title_sort influence of different prosodic cues on word segmentation
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8007974/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33796045
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.622042
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