Toward an integrative model of talker normalization.

Zhang, Caicai; Chen, Si

doi:10.1037/xhp0000216

Cited by 29 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 72 publications

(212 reference statements)

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“…This distinction between the lexical-semantic and indexical pathways is closely aligned with recent proposals concerning spoken language processing (Belin et al, 2004(Belin et al, , 2011Martin et al, 2016;Sumner et al, 2014;Van Berkum et al, 2008) and in broad agreement with the proposal that speech perception involves parallel representations of indexical and linguistic information (e.g., Magnuson & Nusbaum, 2007;Pierrehumbert, 2016;Zhang & Chen, 2016). For instance, based on a range of cognitive and neuro-cognitive studies, colleagues (2004, 2011) propose that speech input is processed by three parallel processing pathways that respectively perform analysis of (i) speech information, (ii) vocal identity, and (iii) vocal affective information.…”

Section: Implications For Models Of Spoken Word Comprehensionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Cai¹,

Gilbert²,

Davis³

et al. 2017

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Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker's linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of "bonnet") in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker's dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British-and Americanaccented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access.

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Section: Implications For Models Of Spoken Word Comprehensionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Cai¹,

Gilbert²,

Davis³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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“…One possibility is that the variable and dynamic nature of lexical tones made it more difficult for participants to learn/abstract than segments. As a result, the intervening sleep between training and later posttests thus facilitated the stimuli produced by the trained talker, which were also perceptually challenging [22,23,26,27].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different from segments (consonants and vowels), as illustrated in Fig 1, lexical tones are highly dynamic, requiring listeners to evaluate the pitch they hear in the signal against the pitch range of the talker and continuously update this evaluation as more of the pitch contour is heard over time [21][22][23][24][25]. Importantly, a given talker shows variability in the production of tonal categories, thus also requiring listeners to evaluate the pitch they hear against the talker's different realizations of the same tonal categories (within-category variations) and of different tonal categories (crosscategory variations) [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Thus, listeners need to extract the abstract representations from tonal exemplars in order to generalize successfully across talkers [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, a given talker shows variability in the production of tonal categories, thus also requiring listeners to evaluate the pitch they hear against the talker's different realizations of the same tonal categories (within-category variations) and of different tonal categories (crosscategory variations) [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Thus, listeners need to extract the abstract representations from tonal exemplars in order to generalize successfully across talkers [27]. The variable and dynamic features of lexical tones make it worth investigating whether listeners who learn novel lexical 6 tones with overnight consolidation would show a facilitated generalization across talkers at least to a similar degree as that reported on the learning of novel segmental contrasts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of overnight consolidation in the perceptual learning of non-native tonal contrasts

Qin

Zhang

2019

Preprint

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Sleep-mediated overnight consolidation was found to facilitate perceptual learning by promoting learners' generalization across talkers in their perception of novel segmental categories. Lexical tone differs from most segmental contrasts in that it is highly variable across talkers, and displays dynamic change over time. It remains unclear whether a similar (or a larger) effect of overnight consolidation would be found for perceptual learning of novel tonal contrasts. Thus, this study aims to examine whether overnight consolidation facilitates generalization across talkers in the discrimination and identification of novel Cantonese level tones by Mandarin listeners. Two groups of Mandarin listeners were perceptually trained either in the morning or in the evening.Listeners were trained in a tone identification (ID) task using stimuli produced by a trained talker.Their development was then tested in the ID and AX discrimination tasks using stimuli produced by trained and untrained talkers in three posttests following training: immediately after training, 12-hour delay, and 24-hour delay. While the evening group slept between the first and second posttests, the morning group did not. The results of accuracy rates in the ID task showed that while Mandarin listeners trained in the evening showed an improved trend, predicted by their individual sleep time, in identifying the level tones produced by both the trained and untrained talkers, Mandarin listeners trained in the morning showed a declining trend. In contrast, the results of d-prime scores in the AX discrimination task did not show different developmental patterns between the two groups. Consistent with previous studies on segmental learning, the finding suggests that overnight consolidation might have assisted the evening trainees' formation of a more abstract (talker-independent) representation of novel tone categories in memory traces.The results are discussed regarding the features of lexical tones to shed light on the mechanism of phonetic learning.

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“…It has been found that tonal language speakers rely on the relative pitch height of a tone with reference to a speaker's pitch range in lexical tone perception (Zhang et al 2012(Zhang et al , 2013Zhang and Chen, 2016). Similarly, relative pitch relationship is critical for musical perception.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural bases of congenital amusia in tonal language speakers

et al. 2017

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Congenital amusia is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder of fine-grained pitch processing. In this fMRI study, we examined the neural bases of congenial amusia in speakers of a tonal language - Cantonese. Previous studies on non-tonal language speakers suggest that the neural deficits of congenital amusia lie in the music-selective neural circuitry in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). However, it is unclear whether this finding can generalize to congenital amusics in tonal languages. Tonal language experience has been reported to shape the neural processing of pitch, which raises the question of how tonal language experience affects the neural bases of congenital amusia. To investigate this question, we examined the neural circuitries sub-serving the processing of relative pitch interval in pitch-matched Cantonese level tone and musical stimuli in 11 Cantonese-speaking amusics and 11 musically intact controls. Cantonese-speaking amusics exhibited abnormal brain activities in a widely distributed neural network during the processing of lexical tone and musical stimuli. Whereas the controls exhibited significant activation in the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) in the lexical tone condition and in the cerebellum regardless of the lexical tone and music conditions, no activation was found in the amusics in those regions, which likely reflects a dysfunctional neural mechanism of relative pitch processing in the amusics. Furthermore, the amusics showed abnormally strong activation of the right middle frontal gyrus and precuneus when the pitch stimuli were repeated, which presumably reflect deficits of attending to repeated pitch stimuli or encoding them into working memory. No significant group difference was found in the right IFG in either the whole-brain analysis or region-of-interest analysis. These findings imply that the neural deficits in tonal language speakers might differ from those in non-tonal language speakers, and overlap partly with the neural circuitries of lexical tone processing (e.g. right STG).

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Toward an integrative model of talker normalization.

Cited by 29 publications

References 72 publications

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

The effect of overnight consolidation in the perceptual learning of non-native tonal contrasts

Neural bases of congenital amusia in tonal language speakers

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