Presentations

Abstract

Listeners are known to use contextual speech rate in processing temporally ambiguous speech sounds. For instance, a fast adjacent speech context makes a vowel sound relatively long, whereas a slow context makes it sound relatively short (Reinisch & Sjerps, 2013). Besides the local contextual speech rate, listeners also track talker-specific habitual speech rates (Reinisch, 2016; Maslowski et al., in press). However, effects of one’s own speech rate on the perception of another talker’s speech are yet unexplored. Such effects are potentially important, given that, in dialogue, a listener’s own speech often constitutes the context for the interlocutor’s speech. Three experiments tested the contribution of self-produced speech on perception of the habitual speech rate of another talker. In Experiment 1, one group of participants was instructed to speak fast (high-rate group), whereas another group had to speak slowly (low-rate group; 16 participants per group). The two groups were compared on their perception of ambiguous Dutch /A/-/a:/ vowels embedded in neutral rate speech from another talker. In Experiment 2, the same participants listened to playback of their own speech, whilst evaluating target vowels in neutral rate speech as before. Neither of these experiments provided support for the involvement of self-produced speech in perception of another talker's speech rate. Experiment 3 repeated Experiment 2 with a new participant sample, who did not know the participants from the previous two experiments. Here, a group effect was found on perception of the neutral rate talker. This result replicates the finding of Maslowski et al. that habitual speech rates are perceived relative to each other (i.e., neutral rate sounds fast in the presence of a slower talker and vice versa), with naturally produced speech. Taken together, the findings show that self-produced speech is processed differently from speech produced by others. They carry implications for our understanding of the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms involved in rate-dependent speech perception and the link between production and perception in dialogue settings.

Abstract

Interlocutors perceive phonemic category boundaries relative to talkers’ produced speech rates. For instance, a temporally ambiguous vowel between Dutch short /A/ and long /a:/ sounds short (i.e., as /A/) in a slow speech context, but long in a fast context. Besides the local contextual speech rate, listeners also track talker-specific habitual speech rates (Maslowski et al., in press). However, it is yet unclear whether self-produced speech rate modulates perception of another talker’s habitual rate. Such effects are potentially important, given that, in dialogue, a listener’s own speech often constitutes the context for the interlocutor’s speech. Three experiments addressed this question. In Experiment 1, one group of participants was instructed to speak fast, whereas another group had to speak slowly (16 participants per group). The two groups were then compared on their perception of ambiguous Dutch /A/-/a:/ vowels embedded in neutral rate speech from another talker. In Experiment 2, the same participants listened to playback of their own speech, whilst evaluating target vowels in neutral rate speech as before. Neither of these experiments provided support for the involvement of self-produced speech in perception of another talker's speech rate. Experiment 3 repeated Experiment 2 with a new participant sample, who were unfamiliar with the participants from the previous two experiments. Here, a group effect was found on perception of the neutral rate talker. This result replicates the finding of Maslowski et al. that habitual speech rates are perceived relative to each other (i.e., neutral rate sounds fast in the presence of a slower talker and vice versa), with naturally produced speech. Taken together, the findings show that self-produced speech is processed differently from speech produced by others. They carry implications for our understanding of the link between production and perception in dialogue.

Abstract

That speakers can vary their speaking rate is evident, but how they accomplish this has
hardly been studied. The effortful experience of deviating from one's preferred speaking rate
might result from shifting between different regimes (system configurations) of the speech
planning system. This study investigates control over speech rate through simulations of a
new connectionist computational model of the cognitive process of speech production, derived
from Dell, Burger and Svec’s (1997) model to fit the temporal characteristics of observed
speech. We draw an analogy from human movement: the selection of walking and running
gaits to achieve different movement speeds. Are the regimes of the speech production system
arranged into multiple ‘gaits’ that resemble walking and running?
During training of the model, different parameter settings are identified for different speech
rates, which can be conflated with the regimes of the speech production system. The
parameters can be considered to be dimensions of a high-dimensional ‘regime space’, in
which different regimes occupy different parts of the space.
In a single gait system, the regimes are qualitatively similar, but quantitatively different.
They are arranged along a straight line through regime space. Different points along this axis
correspond directly to different speaking rates. In a multiple gait system, the arrangement of
the regimes is more disperse, with no obvious relationship between the regions associated
with each gait.
After training, the model achieved good fits in all three speaking rates, and the parameter
settings associated with each speaking rate were different. The broad arrangement of the
parameter settings for the different speaking rates in regime space was non-axial, suggesting
that ‘gaits’ may be present in the speech planning system.

Abstract

In recent years, the theory that prediction is an important part of language processing has gained considerable attention (see Huettig, 2015, for overview). There is a large body of empirical evidence which suggests that language users’ ability to anticipate interlocutors’ upcoming utterances is one of the reasons why interactive speech can be so effortless, smooth, and efficient in nature (e.g. Wicha et al., 2004; van Berkum et al., 2005). The present study aimed to investigate whether the language production module is affected by prediction of another individual’s utterances using a joint language production task designed to establish whether simulation of an interlocutor’s utterance occurs automatically, even if this hinders one’s own speech production. The experiment aimed to replicate the finding of an interference effect in a joint naming task (Gambi et al., 2015), and investigate whether the same patterns could be found within a clearer social context where a partner was co-present in the same room. Participants named pictures of objects while their partners concurrently named or categorised congruent or incongruent stimuli. Analyses of naming onset latencies indicate that individuals may partially co-represent their partner’s utterances and that this shared representation influences language production. Congruency in task and stimuli display facilitated naming compared to incongruent trials which showed a tendency to impede production latencies. This finding of a social effect in a setting where simulation of language content is not necessary may suggest that some kind of anticipatory processing is an underlying feature of comprehension.

Abstract

Previous work on memory phenomena shows that pictures and words lead to a production effect, i.e. better memory for aloud than silent items, and that this interacts with the picture superiority effect, i.e. better memory for pictures than words (Fawcett, Quinlan and Taylor, 2012). We investigated the role of the generation effect, i.e. improved memory for generated words, in picture naming. As picture naming requires participants to think of an appropriate label, a generation effect might be elicited for pictures but not words. Forty-two participants named pictures silently or aloud and were given the correct picture name or an unreadable label; all conditions included pictures to control for the picture superiority effect. Memory was then tested using a yes/no recognition task. We found a production effect (p < 0.001) showing the role of articulation in memory, a generation effect (p < 0.001) showing the role of lexical access in memory, and an interaction (p <0.05) between the two suggesting the non-independence of the effects. Ongoing work further tests the role of label reliability in eliciting these effects. This research demonstrates a role for the generation effect in picture naming, with implications for memory asymmetries at different stages in language production.

Abstract

If message and sentence planning are closely linked processes, planning scope may vary depending on what speakers want to say and how they say it. We compared speakers’ gaze pattern to pictures in displays eliciting sentences like “The lion and the tiger are above the basket” when speakers were a) more familiar or less familiar with the spatial layout of these displays, and b) more familiar or less familiar with the phrasal structures used in these sentences. Familiarity with spatial layout was induced by presenting prime trials with a similar or dissimilar layout of pictures (“The bell and the nail are above/below the crutch”) before the target trial, and familiarity with sentence structure was manipulated via structural priming (prime trials elicited sentences like “The bell and the nail are above the crutch” or “The bell is above the nail and the crutch”). When describing pictures on target trials, speakers looked earlier at the second object (tiger) when they were familiar with both the spatial layout and sentence structure, but speech onsets were reduced (structural priming) only when both spatial layout and sentence structure were repeated. The results show that linguistic planning is facilitated by congruence between message-level and sentence-level structure.

Abstract

Studies of lexical access in speech planning often use priming or interference paradigms, where a target picture is combined with a written prime or distracter word. A difficulty in interpreting the results of studies using interference paradigms with clearly visible distracters is that effects arising during lexical access cannot be distinguished from effects arising during self-monitoring. A difficulty with using masked priming paradigms is that the effects tend to be small and fragile. We report a series of picture naming experiments using both the conventional masked priming procedure and the sandwich priming procedure first used in lexical decision experiments by Lupker and masked prime the participants are briefly (i.e., 33 ms) presented the name of the target picture. Although neither categorically nor phonologically related primes significantly affected picture naming in the traditional masked priming experiments, in the sandwich priming experiments: (a) categorically related primes (e.g. “dog-cat”) interfered more than unrelated distracters with picture naming and (b) phonologically related primes (“mat-cat”) facilitated picture naming. The theoretical implications of these findings will be discussed. Lupker, S.J., & Davis, C.J. (2009). Sandwich priming: A method for overcoming the limitations of masked priming by reducing lexical competition effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 35, 618-639.

Abstract

Models of the mental representation of morphologically complex words traditionally fall into one of two categories, Single-Route or Dual-Route models. The former further distinguish between Full-Listing (e.g. Butterworth, 1983) and Decomposition (e.g. Taft & Forster, 1976), while the latter assume different systems governing the access of mono- vs. polymorphemic words (e.g. Pinker & Prince, 1994; Pinker & Ullman, 2002). One of the main arguments against decomposition and continuous online computations is the cognitive resources this process would require. Turning this reasoning around, taxing someone's working memory capacities should then uniquely affect the computation of bimorphemic verb forms. We tested this hypothesis on 48 Dutch native speakers with a lexical decision task, comparing reaction times for Dutch regular past tense forms to frequency-matched irregular past tense forms, both under low and under high cognitive load. We found that frequency influenced reactions to monomorphemic but not to bimorphemic forms (F(1, 47) = 4.734, p = .035), favoring a listing account for the former but a computational procedure for the latter forms. This interaction, however, was present only for a certain group of people (F(1, 23) = 6.279, p = .02), namely those whose reaction times were hardly affected by the load manipulation and who thus may be thought of as having larger working memory capacities. On the other hand, participants who showed a strong load effect had no interaction between number of morphemes and frequency (F(1, 23) = .575, ns), indicating that they process monomorphemic and bimorphemic forms in a similar manner. It seems that cognitive capacities influence the storage of and access to polymorphemic verb forms. While people with greater working memory skills use these resources to compute morphologically complex inflections on-line, people with smaller cognitive capacities seem to rely on a list-like storage for bimorphemic forms as well.

Abstract

Speakers clearly differ in how quickly they can retrieve words from the mental lexicon, but little is known about the sources of this variability. The present study investigated the relationship between speakers’ executive control abilities and their speed of picture naming. In two experiments, adult speakers of British English named line drawings of objects and actions. Three main components of executive control - updating, shifting of attention, and inhibiting - were assessed using the operation-span, number-letter shifting, and stop-signal task, respectively (see Myake et al.,2000 ). Reaction times (RT) to action and object pictures were highly correlated. Ex-Gaussian analyses of the RT distributions showed that the speakers’ updating scores correlated with the tau parameter of the RT distributions, i.e. predicted the proportions of slow responses in action and object naming. The inhibiting scores correlated with the mean RTs, whereas the scores obtained in the number-letter shifting task were uncorrelated to the RTs. These results indicate that the executive control abilities of updating and inhibiting contribute to the speed of naming objects and actions. Theories of word production may require modification to take account of these findings.

Abstract

a bitter rain – two silences beneath the one umbrella Is the connotative meaning of texts readily available or is it gleaned at an extra cognitive cost? The eye-movements of 31 English native speakers (10 male, mean age 21 years) were recorded while reading 24 haiku, 12 in the original/symbolic version, and 12 in a modified version where the most symbolic word (the keyword ‘bitter’ in the example) was replaced by a more literal word (‘loud’) reducing the text’s symbolic purport. The effects of keyword substitutions were measured globally, comparing total reading times for the two haiku types, and locally, examining the first pass gaze durations and dwell times on a word closely connected to the keyword, the referent ‘silences’, and on the last word, ‘umbrella’, to examine wrap-up processes. First pass duration showed no effects of the substitution. However, dwell time on referents and last-word regions, and total reading time were significantly longer for the original than for the altered haiku, suggesting that the connotative meaning of the texts was not available immediately but only through re-reading of the texts. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the literature on the processing of inferences in symbolic texts.

Abstract

a bitter rain – two silences beneath the one umbrella Is the connotative meaning of a text readily available or is it accessed only after re-examining a text? Thirtyone English native speakers (10 male, mean age 21) read 24 haiku, 12 in their original/symbolic version and 12 in a version in which the most symbolic word (the keyword "bitter" in the example above) was replaced by a more literal word ("loud"), reducing the text’s symbolic purport. Participants' eye movements were recorded using the eye-tracker EyeLink 1000. The effect of the word substitution was measured globally, by comparing the total reading times for the two haiku types, and locally, by examining first pass duration and dwell time on a word closely connected to the keyword (the referent, "silences") and on the last word ("umbrella"), as this might show wrap-up processes. First pass durations showed no effects of the substitution. However, total reading time and dwell time on both the referent and the last-word regions were significantly longer for haiku with the original keyword than for haiku with the altered keyword. These findings suggest that the texts’ connotative meaning was not available immediately but only through re-reading of the texts.

Abstract

When children learn their native language, they have to deal with a confusing array of dependencies between various elements in an utterance. Some of these dependencies may be adjacent to one another whereas others can be separated by considerable intervening material. In this study, we investigate whether both types of dependencies can be learned together, similarly to the task facing young children. Statistical learning of adjacent dependencies (probability = .17) and non-adjacent dependencies (probability = 1.0) was assessed in two experiments using a modified serial-reaction-time task. The results showed (i) increasing online sensitivity to both dependency types during training, (ii) better nonadjacency than adjacency learning, and (iii) nonadjacency learning being highly correlated with adjacency learning, suggesting that adjacency and non-adjacency learning can occur in parallel and might be subserved by a common statistical learning mechanism. An overnight break between two training sessions helped the online learning performance of slower learners to approach that of faster learners, but the same amount of training without such a break (a 15-min interval) did not, suggesting that memory consolidation may play a role in statistical learning of complex statistical patterns, especially for slower learners.