Predicting acoustically reduced words in spontaneous speech: The role of semantic/syntactic and acoustic cues in context

Ven, Marco van de; Ernestus, Mirjam; Schreuder, Robert

doi:10.1515/lp-2012-0020

Cited by 14 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…Especially under conditions in which the speech stream does not provide reliable cues, contextual cues become an important source of information for identifying the words and segments of speech. This has been demonstrated by studies investigating the recognition of acoustically reduced speech (e.g., Brouwer, Mitterer, & Huettig, 2012b;Ernestus, Baayen, & Schreuder, 2002;Janse & Ernestus, 2011;van de Ven, Ernestus, & Schreuder, 2012). For example, Ernestus et al (2002) presented strongly reduced word forms extracted from a corpus of spontaneous Dutch either in isolation or in context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Syntactic predictability in the recognition of carefully and casually produced speech.

Viebahn¹,

Ernestus²,

McQueen³

2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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The present study investigated whether the recognition of spoken words is influenced by how predictable they are given their syntactic context and whether listeners assign more weight to syntactic predictability when acoustic-phonetic information is less reliable. Syntactic predictability was manipulated by varying the word order of past participles and auxiliary verbs in Dutch subordinate clauses. Acoustic-phonetic reliability was manipulated by presenting sentences either in a careful or a casual speaking style. In three eye-tracking experiments, participants recognized past participles more quickly when they occurred after their associated auxiliary verbs than when they preceded them. Response measures tapping into later stages of processing suggested that this effect was stronger for casually than for carefully produced sentences. These findings provide further evidence that syntactic predictability can influence word recognition and that this type of information is particularly useful for coping with acousticphonetic reductions in conversational speech. We conclude that listeners dynamically adapt to the different sources of linguistic information available to them.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Syntactic predictability in the recognition of carefully and casually produced speech.

Viebahn¹,

Ernestus²,

McQueen³

2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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“…Janse & Ernestus, 2011) to semantic information (e.g. van de Ven, Ernestus, & Schreuder, 2012). If this information is available, as is the case in natural conversations, listeners may process reduced forms as easily as full forms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alpha and gamma band oscillations index differential processing of acoustically reduced and full forms

Drijvers

Mulder²,

Ernestus

2016

Brain and Language

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Reduced forms like yeshay for yesterday often occur in conversations. Previous behavioral research reported a processing advantage for full over reduced forms. The present study investigated whether this processing advantage is reflected in a modulation of alpha (8)(9)(10)(11)(12) Hz) and gamma (30+ Hz) band activity. In three electrophysiological experiments, participants listened to full and reduced forms in isolation (Experiment 1), sentence-final position (Experiment 2), or mid-sentence position (Experiment 3). Alpha power was larger in response to reduced forms than to full forms, but only in Experiments 1 and 2. We interpret these increases in alpha power as reflections of higher auditory cognitive load. In all experiments, gamma power only increased in response to full forms, which we interpret as showing that lexical activation spreads more quickly through the semantic network for full than for reduced forms. These results confirm a processing advantage for full forms, especially in non-medial sentence position.3

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“…For example, Mattys and colleagues (2005) proposed a model in which the information integrated in lexical processing was hierarchically organized into Btiers,^with knowledgebased factors such as structural (syntactic and semantic) and lexical knowledge comprising the most important sources of information. However, other lines of research have demonstrated that acoustic information strongly influences lexical recognition, especially for reduced word forms in casual speech (e.g., Ernestus, Baayen, & Schreuder, 2002); in fact, when syntactic and lexical cues conflicted with acoustic information, recognition was affected more by acoustic cues than structural cues (Van De Ven, Ernestus, & Schreuder, 2012). These findings are in line with Mattys and colleagues' postulation in a revision of their model that a strictly hierarchical organization cannot account for changes in sensitivity to both acoustic and syntactic information in the speech context Mattys, Melhorn, & White, 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Interactions between distal speech rate, linguistic knowledge, and speech environment

et al. 2015

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During lexical access, listeners use both signalbased and knowledge-based cues, and information from the linguistic context can affect the perception of acoustic speech information. Recent findings suggest that the various cues used in lexical access are implemented with flexibility and may be affected by information from the larger speech context. We conducted 2 experiments to examine effects of a signal-based cue (distal speech rate) and a knowledge-based cue (linguistic structure) on lexical perception. In Experiment 1, we manipulated distal speech rate in utterances where an acoustically ambiguous critical word was either obligatory for the utterance to be syntactically well formed (e.g., Conner knew that bread and butter (are) both in the pantry) or optional (e.g., Don must see the harbor (or) boats). In Experiment 2, we examined identical target utterances as in Experiment 1 but changed the distribution of linguistic structures in the fillers. The results of the 2 experiments demonstrate that speech rate and linguistic knowledge about critical word obligatoriness can both influence speech perception. In addition, it is possible to alter the strength of a signal-based cue by changing information in the speech environment. These results provide support for models of word segmentation that include flexible weighting of signal-based and knowledge-based cues.

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Predicting acoustically reduced words in spontaneous speech: The role of semantic/syntactic and acoustic cues in context

Abstract: In spontaneous speech, words may be realised shorter than in formal speech (e.g., English yesterday may be pronounced like [ jɛʃeɩ]

Cited by 14 publications

References 50 publications

Syntactic predictability in the recognition of carefully and casually produced speech.

Syntactic predictability in the recognition of carefully and casually produced speech.

Alpha and gamma band oscillations index differential processing of acoustically reduced and full forms

Interactions between distal speech rate, linguistic knowledge, and speech environment

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