Domain-general mechanisms for speech segmentation: The role of duration information in language learning.

Abstract

Speech segmentation is supported by multiple sources of information that may either inform language processing specifically, or serve learning more broadly. The Iambic/Trochaic Law (ITL), where increased duration indicates the end of a group and increased emphasis indicates the beginning of a group, has been proposed as a domain-general mechanism that also applies to language. However, language background has been suggested to modulate use of the ITL, meaning that these perceptual grouping preferences may instead be a consequence of language exposure. To distinguish between these accounts, we exposed native-English and native-Japanese listeners to sequences of speech (Experiment 1) and nonspeech stimuli (Experiment 2), and examined segmentation using a 2AFC task. Duration was manipulated over 3 conditions: sequences contained either an initial-item duration increase, or a final-item duration increase, or items of uniform duration. In Experiment 1, language background did not affect the use of duration as a cue for segmenting speech in a structured artificial language. In Experiment 2, the same results were found for grouping structured sequences of visual shapes. The results are consistent with proposals that duration information draws upon a domain-general mechanism that can apply to the special case of language acquisition.

Processing of Rhythm in Speech and Music in Adult Dyslexia

“…Based on these findings it has been proposed that the use of duration cues for grouping is acquired, while the use of other rhythmic cues for trochaic groupings is innate (more evidence for this proposal comes from studies with rats [73,74] but c.f. [75,76] for evidence that the use of duration for iambic groupings is also innate). The present finding that intensity-based grouping is unmodulated by musical rhythm perception ability is consistent with the assumption of an innate preference for trochaic groupings when intensity alternations are perceived.…”

Mark my words: High frequency marker words impact early stages of language learning.

“…In this instance, recognizing the word you could help the learner to identify the way in which the succeeding ( eat , drink ) and preceding ( yet ) words begin and end, respectively, thus facilitating segmentation. Critically though, some of the speech will remain unsegmented ( biscuityet ), meaning that high-frequency words do not entirely solve the task of speech segmentation—learners must extract the remaining words through further processing, such as computing the transitional probabilities of syllables within words, and inferring word boundaries at points where the subsequent syllable is difficult to predict (e.g., Saffran et al, 1996), or exploiting the broad array of prosodic cues that support segmentation (Curtin, Mintz, & Christiansen, 2005; Frost, Monaghan, & Tatsumi, 2017; Mattys, White, & Melhorn, 2005; Monaghan, White, & Merkx, 2013; Turk & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2000).…”

Parallels in Processing Boundary Cues in Speech and Action

“…This suggestion is supported by recent work showing that durational cues are sufficient to support segmentation of abstract streams of information, such as sequences of patterns. For example, Frost et al (2017) presented adult participants with a stream of visual patterns and found that lengthening the duration of single patterns encouraged participants to perceive a boundary at that position and form a segment from the previously presented patterns. It is therefore conceivable that the CPS reflects bottom-up processing, which can be driven by these lower-level perceptual cues alone.…”