A New Test for Categorical Perception

Kopp, James

doi:10.1007/bf03393888

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…This finding has been extensively replicated in both speech (e.g. Ferrero, Pelamatti & Vagges, 1982; Kopp, 1969; Larkey, Wald & Strange, 1978; Liberman, Harris, Kinney & Lane, 1961; Philips, Pellathy, Marantz, Yellin, Wexler, Poeppel, McGinnis & Roberts, 2000; Schouten & Van Hessen, 1992; Sharma & Dorman, 1999) and non-speech domains (e.g. Beale & Keil, 1995; Bornstein & Korda, 1984; Freedman, Riesenhuber, Poggio & Miller, 2001; Howard, Rosen & Broad, 1992; Newell & Bulthoff, 2002; Quinn, 2004).…”

Section: Categorical and Non-categorical Speech Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Thus, discrimination performance along the continuum was predicted largely by category membership, a pattern of responding that violates Weber's law and was named categorical perception. This finding has been extensively replicated in both speech (e.g., Ferrero, Pelamatti, & Vagges, 1982;Kopp, 1969;Larkey, Wald, & Strange, 1978;Liberman, Harris, Kinney, & Lane, 1961;Philips et al, 2000;M. E. H. Schouten & Van Hessen, 1992;Sharma & Dorman, 1999) and nonspeech domains (e.g., Beale & Keil, 1995;Bornstein & Korda, 1984;Freedman, Riesenhuber, Poggio, & Miller, 2001;Howard, Rosen, & Broad, 1992;Newell & Bu ¨lthoff, 2002;Quinn, 2004).…”

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confidence: 68%

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Gradient sensitivity to within-category variation in words and syllables.

McMurray

Aslin

Tanenhaus

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

141

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Five experiments monitored eye movements in phoneme and lexical identification tasks to examine the effect of within-category sub-phonetic variation on the perception of stop consonants. Experiment 1 demonstrated gradient effects along VOT continua made from natural speech, replicating results with synthetic speech (McMurray, Tanenhaus & Aslin, Cognition, 2002). Experiments 2-5 used synthetic VOT continua to examine effects of response alternatives (2 vs. 4), task (lexical vs. phoneme decision), and type of token (word vs. CV). A gradient effect of VOT in at least one half of the continuum was observed in all conditions. These results suggest that during on-line spoken word recognition lexical competitors are activated in proportion to their continuous distance from a category boundary. This gradient processing may allow listeners to anticipate upcoming acoustic/phonetic information in the speech signal and dynamically compensate for acoustic variability. KeywordsSpeech Perception; Categorical Perception; Word Recognition; Subphonemic Sensitivity; Visual World ParadigmThe remarkable ability of human listeners to understand spoken language stands in stark contrast to the highly variable acoustic cues that signal phonemic distinctions. Attempts to find context-independent or invariant cues to simple phonetic features such as place of Corresponding Author: Bob McMurray, Department of Psychology, E11 SSH, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, bobmcmurray@uiowa.edu, 319-335-2408 (phone), 319-335-0191 (fax). 9 We were surprised that Experiment 2 shows gradient effects despite the steep labeling function, whereas Experiment 3, with a more continuous labeling function does not. We conducted detailed analyses of the timecourse in order to understand these conflicting results. Two factors appear to conspire to drive these effects. First, Experiment 2 has extremely low variability, making it possible to detect even small differences. Second, our analyses suggest that the, likelihood of detecting gradiency depends on the overall proportion of fixations to competitors. There were relatively more fixations to competitors in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 3, perhaps driven by the fact that there were no other objects on the screen. Details of these analyses are available from the first author. articulation have met with little success, suggesting that simple invariants do not exist and that speech perception must employ at least partial context-dependent sensitivity. At its heart, the search for invariant acoustic cues in the speech signal is based on the assumption that perception is fundamentally a problem of transforming a continuous and contextually varying signal into discrete and contextually invariant units such as phonemes and words. Continuous aspects of the signal are thought to represent noise that must be discarded during perception, and so-called invariant cues represent nuggets of discreteness buried in this continuous signal. NIH Public AccessIt is now clear that the variance reduction assumption is ...

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Section: Categorical and Non-categorical Speech Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 74%

mentioning

confidence: 68%

Gradient sensitivity to within-category variation in words and syllables.

McMurray

Aslin

Tanenhaus

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although early work suggested that within-category variation was lost during categorization, especially for consonants (Liberman, Harris, Hoffman & Griffith, 1957; Liberman, Harris, Kinney & Lane, 1961; Ferrero, Pelamatti & Vagges, 1982; Kopp, 1969; Larkey, Wald & Strange, 1978), more recent research demonstrates that spoken word recognition is exquisitely sensitive to sub-phonetic variation. For example, listeners use segmental duration to help distinguish between a monosyllabic word, such as ham, and a potential carrier word, such as hamster (Davis, Gaskell & Marslen-Wilson, 2002; Gow & Gordon, 1995; Salverda, Dahan & McQueen, 2003; Salverda, Dahan, Tanenhaus, Crosswhite, Masharov & McDonough, 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Within-category VOT affects recovery from “lexical” garden-paths: Evidence against phoneme-level inhibition

McMurray

Tanenhaus

Aslin

2009

Journal of Memory and Language

148

199

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Spoken word recognition shows gradient sensitivity to within-category voice onset time (VOT), as predicted by several current models of spoken word recognition, including TRACE (McClelland & Elman, Cognitive Psychology, 1986). It remains unclear, however, whether this sensitivity is shortlived or whether it persists over multiple syllables. VOT continua were synthesized for pairs of words like barricade and parakeet, which differ in the voicing of their initial phoneme, but otherwise overlap for at least four phonemes, creating an opportunity for "lexical garden-paths" when listeners encounter the phonemic information consistent with only one member of the pair. Simulations established that phoneme-level inhibition in TRACE eliminates sensitivity to VOT too rapidly to influence recovery. However, in two Visual World experiments, look-contingent and responsecontingent analyses demonstrated effects of word initial VOT on lexical garden-path recovery. These results are inconsistent with inhibition at the phoneme level and support models of spoken word recognition in which sub-phonetic detail is preserved throughout the processing system. KeywordsSpoken Word Recognition; Speech Perception; Gradiency; Eye Movements; Lexical ambiguity Speech perception has been classically framed as a problem of overcoming variability in the signal to recover underlying linguistic categories, such as features, phonemes and words. This variability arises because the signal unfolds as a transient series of acoustic events created by partially overlapping articulatory gestures. These gestures are conditioned by the segment currently being uttered and by the properties of preceding and upcoming segments, such processes impose significant variability on the signal. Even multiple utterances of the same word produced by a single speaker in a consistent context show significant variability (Newman, Clouse, & Burnham, 2001). Therefore, different tokens of the same sound and same word are likely to vary along a number of different dimensions.While acoustic cues are variable, listeners must ultimately make a more-or-less discrete decision about word identity. Although early work suggested that within-category variation was lost during categorization, especially for consonants (Liberman, Harris, Hoffman & Corresponding Author: Bob McMurray, Dept. of Psychology, E11 SSH, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52240, bobmcmurray@uiowa.edu, 319-335-2408 (voice), 319-335-0191 (fax). Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript J Mem Lang. Author manuscript; available i...

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A New Test for Categorical Perception

Cited by 2 publications

References 4 publications

Gradient sensitivity to within-category variation in words and syllables.

Gradient sensitivity to within-category variation in words and syllables.

Within-category VOT affects recovery from “lexical” garden-paths: Evidence against phoneme-level inhibition

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