Evaluating the sources and functions of gradiency in phoneme categorization: An individual differences approach.

Kapnoula, Efthymia C.; Winn, Matthew B.; Kong, Eun Jong; Edwards, Jan; McMurray, Bob

doi:10.1037/xhp0000410

Cited by 66 publications

(211 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Languages differ both in which cues are relevant and the relative importance of these cues (e.g., cross‐linguistic differences in the phonetic realization of the stop voicing contrast: Lisker & Abramson, ), and dialectal variation can often be ascribed to differences in cue weighting (e.g., use of VOT vs. f0 in the Korean stop contrast: Y. Kang, Schertz, & Han, ; Lee, Politzer‐Ahles, & Jongman ()). Even within a homogeneous language group, individual cue‐weighting strategies differ (e.g., Kapnoula, Winn, Kong, Edwards, & McMurray, ; Schertz, Cho, Lotto, & Warner, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonetic cue weighting in perception and production

Schertz

Clare

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

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Speech sound contrasts differ along multiple phonetic dimensions. During speech perception, listeners must decide which cues are relevant, and determine the relative importance of each cue, while also integrating other, signal-external cues. The comparison of cue weighting in perception and production bears on a range of theoretical issues including the processes underlying sound change, the time course of learning, the nature of cues, and the perception-production interface. Research examining the relative alignment of cue weighting across the modalities, on both a community and individual level, has revealed both parallels and asymmetries between the modalities. The extraordinarily wide range of ways that have been used to conceptualize and quantify cue weights reflects the inherent theoretical, methodological, and analytical differences between the two modalities. More consideration of the choices of analytical metrics, explicit discussion of the theoretical assumptions that underlie them, and systematic investigations of different types of cues will lead to more generalizable findings that can be incorporated into computational implementable models of speech processing. This article is categorized under:Linguistics > Language in Mind and Braincue weighting, phonetics, speech perception, speech production | INTRODUCTIONSpeech sound contrasts differ on multiple phonetic dimensions: for example, the English sounds /b/ and /p/ differ systematically in voice onset time (VOT, the amount of time between the stop release and onset of voicing), but also differ, albeit less reliably, in other dimensions including the duration of the stop closure and the fundamental frequency (f0, corresponding to perceived pitch) at the onset of voicing (Lisker, 1986). Phonetic cue weighting, or the relative use of these acoustic "cues," can be conceptualized and quantified in the context of both production and perception. For example, as shown in Figure 1, English speakers' productions of /b/ and /p/ show large and consistent differences in VOT, such that /b/ vs. /p/ category membership can by well-predicted using this cue alone. On the other hand, while /b/ is followed by a lower f0 than /p/ on average, this difference is much smaller and less consistent, such that f0 is only weakly predictive of category membership. This asymmetry between the two cues is reflected in perception: when asked to categorize sounds varying in aspiration duration and f0, listeners' responses are mainly determined by aspiration (the primary cue), with the value of f0 playing a secondary, albeit still detectable, role (Abramson & Lisker, 1985).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonetic cue weighting in perception and production

Schertz

Clare

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

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“…There is also evidence that individuals may vary in their use of secondary cues in perception (see Schertz & Claire, 2019 for a review of individual variability in cue weights). Some individuals use a secondary cue more than others for F0 in English stop voicing (Kapnoula, Winn, Kong, Edwards, & McMurray, 2017;Kong & Edwards, 2016;Shultz, Francis, & Llanos, 2012) and vowel duration for English tense/lax vowels (Kim & Clayards, 2019). A common method to quantify individual cue weights is to use regression coefficients fit to each individual's responses (e.g., Shultz et al, 2012), or to use by-individual deviations from the population coefficient for a single regression model fit to all data ('random slopes,' e.g., Clayards, 2018; see also Schertz & Claire, 2019 for discussion of different methods).…”

Section: Multiple Cues: Individual Variability and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some researchers have argued that more use of a secondary cue is associated with more gradient sensitivity to primary cues, using a visual analog scaling task rather than a categorical decision task (Kapnoula et al, 2017;Kong & Edwards, 2016). Thus, the positive correlations in Clayards (2018) and the relationship between gradient sensitivity and cue use (Kapnoula et al, 2017;Kong & Edwards, 2016) both point to some listeners' speech perception being more closely tied to the acoustics of the stimulus than others. However, as noted above, not all studies have found this relationship.…”

Section: Multiple Cues: Individual Variability and Sound Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Individual and dialect differences in perceiving multiple cues: A tonal register contrast in two Chinese Wu dialects

Jiang

Clayards

Sonderegger

2020

Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology

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This study investigates how multiple cues contribute to multi-dimensional phonological contrasts at both the group level and the individual level, and how dialectal experience shapes listeners' perceptual strategies. We examine a tonal register contrast in two Chinese Wu dialects signaled by three cues: pitch height, voice quality, and pitch contour. We found that 1) at the group level, cue weights are context-specific, i.e., vary by tone, and some contrasts rely more heavily on multiple cues than others; 2) dialectal experience affects listeners' perceptual strategy: Shanghai listeners, with their own dialect having a smaller voice quality distinction, do not rely more on the cue even when listening to stimuli with a clear breathy-modal distinction, comparing to Jiashan listeners; 3) individuals' cue weights are correlated in a positive manner, meaning that some listeners show overall larger cue weights than others; larger variability is found when the contrast has more than one salient cue, in which case individuals have different options of choosing one cue over another as the primary cue and this can work against the positive correlation.

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“…Some recent work has begun to probe the extent to which individual differences in categorization strategies can be linked to other aspects of speech perception and/or general cognitive abilities. For example, Kapnoula et al (2017) found that individuals who show more gradient categorization of the English stop voicing contrast (i.e., a shallower slope on a VOT categorization curve) also show greater use of f0 (a secondary cue) and propose several potential reasons for this correlation. Clayards (2018b) showed that individuals who exhibited higher cue weights for a given dimension in a given contrast also tended to show higher cue weights on a different dimension on a different contrast, suggesting that some individuals may simply show more consistent labeling patterns than others (see also Hazan and Boulakia, 1991).…”

Section: Stability Of Individual Cue Use Across Languages In Bilingualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Specificity in Phonetic Cue Weighting: Monolingual and Bilingual Perception of the Stop Voicing Contrast in English and Spanish

2019

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Background/Aims: This work examines the perception of the stop voicing contrast in Spanish and English along four acoustic dimensions, comparing monolingual and bilingual listeners. Our primary goals are to test the extent to which cue-weighting strategies are language-specific in monolinguals, and whether this language specificity extends to bilingual listeners. Methods: Participants categorized sounds varying in voice onset time (VOT, the primary cue to the contrast) and three secondary cues: fundamental frequency at vowel onset, first formant (F1) onset frequency, and stop closure duration. Listeners heard acoustically identical target stimuli, within language-specific carrier phrases, in English and Spanish modes. Results: While all listener groups used all cues, monolingual English listeners relied more on F1, and less on closure duration, than monolingual Spanish listeners, indicating language specificity in cue use. Early bilingual listeners used the three secondary cues similarly in English and Spanish, despite showing language-specific VOT boundaries. Conclusion: While our findings reinforce previous work demonstrating language-specific phonetic representations in bilinguals in terms of VOT boundary, they suggest that this specificity may not extend straightforwardly to cue-weighting strategies.

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Evaluating the sources and functions of gradiency in phoneme categorization: An individual differences approach.

Cited by 66 publications

References 81 publications

Phonetic cue weighting in perception and production

Phonetic cue weighting in perception and production

Individual and dialect differences in perceiving multiple cues: A tonal register contrast in two Chinese Wu dialects

Language Specificity in Phonetic Cue Weighting: Monolingual and Bilingual Perception of the Stop Voicing Contrast in English and Spanish

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