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

Abstract

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...

The prolonged influence of subsequent context on spoken word recognition

“…This conceptualization of semantic integration is in line with work suggesting that word recognition is not always sequential (Bard, Shillcock, & Altmann, 1988;Dahan, 2010;McMurray, Tanenhaus, & Aslin, 2009), but exhibits characteristics of a parallel process that is made possible by longlasting memory traces of words. Biasing information subsequent to the word being identified can be a useful source of information for achieving accurate word identification and message comprehension.…”

Tonal variability in lexical access

“…This would then be similar to what have been reported on segmental mismatch and the flexibility of such mismatch in lexical processing (Connine, Blasko, & Titone, 1993;Lahiri & Marslen-Wilson, 1991;Marslen-Wilson & Zwitserlood, 1989;McClelland & Elman, 1986;McMurray, Tanenhaus, & Aslin, 2009;Milberg, Blumstein, & Dworetzky, 1988). While our results lack direct evidence to rule this possibility out, it is very important to note that our results in general cannot be explained by underspecification of lexical representation or listeners' tolerance of mismatches in processing.…”

Eye movement evidence that readers maintain and act on uncertainty about past linguistic input

“…In spoken word recognition, comprehenders' conclusions about a given word's identity can be affected by phonetic and lexical cues from adjacent words (3,4), and by subsequent semantic context when the speech stream is manipulated to make bottom-up evidence ambiguous (5,6). It has also recently become clear that even relatively unambiguous bottom-up evidence regarding spoken word identity can be overridden by subsequent evidence within the same word (7,8). It is unknown, however, whether wordidentity uncertainty is maintained as a matter of course after perceptual cues have been encountered in full upon hearing or first reading a word in a sentence.…”